


Untangled

by MerinaThropp



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: 'Tangled but make it Cassunzel', Canon Rewrite, Cassandra falls head over heels, Cassandra takes her to see the lanterns, F/F, Gen, Multi, Slow Burn, Tangled AU, cassunzel, it’s Tangled but Cassandra gets to the tower first, that’s it that’s my pitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerinaThropp/pseuds/MerinaThropp
Summary: Cassandra is on her very first guard assignment when Flynn Rider steals the crown of the Lost Princess. Against her father’s orders, she chases Rider into the woods - and discovers a mysterious tower instead.What if Cassandra had found Rapunzel first?
Relationships: Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Rapunzel
Comments: 268
Kudos: 456





	1. Shattered Glory

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Two things inspired this fic. Firstly, I rewatched the original Tangled and spent the whole movie squinting at Eugene and going, “Huh, see, if this had been Cassandra…” And secondly, I read this quote from Jane Lynch: “Her heart is wrapped in barbed wire. And you just can’t get in there. And someone comes into her life, who starts to unravel the barbed wire around her heart.”
> 
> So! I drafted half of this at the beginning of this year, got bogged down by my perfectionist nature, and recently wrestled myself into continuing. Huge thanks to bestworstcase for her writing advice posts and archerdarke for resolving a ton of my plot conundrums. This is not an OT3 fic, but Eugene still plays a role. Rapunzel and Cassandra’s journey will follow the geography of the film, but the plot will differ, and I've woven in my favourite characters from the series (cough Lady Caine cough).
> 
> Above all, this is a deep-dive into Cassandra, and her journey to unraveling that barbed wire, falling in love, learning from some serious mistakes, and (eventually) growing into the very best version of herself. I hope you enjoy the ride!

* * *

> _“Dad, all I ever wanted was to be like you. I wanted to_ _be a royal  
>  guard, _ _and serve my kingdom. I wanted to make you proud.  
>  There was a time when I would have done anything, gone to  
>  any lengths, to keep from disappointing you.” _
> 
> _-_ _Cassandra to the Captain, Secret of the Sun Drop, S1 Ep21_

* * *

Dawn broke over the kingdom of Corona, and through its golden haze flew a single owl. 

Down through the dusty, sun-baked streets he swooped, mice scattering in his wake. Past the mural of the Lost Princess, forever cradled by her parents in painted tiles the way she never could be in reality. Under the portcullis of the palace barracks, gliding past the guards’ chambers and soaring through a window that had been propped open with a rusted dagger.

Inside, all was cool and quiet, except for the gentle _clink_ of metal against metal that the owl had long-since come to associate with these chambers. He fluttered to land on one of the halberds propped in neat rows against the wall. Beside the halberds stood a floor-length mirror, and in front of the mirror stood a woman, not dressed in the palace’s traditional choices of canary-yellow (for its servant girls) or powder-blue (for its ladies-in-waiting), but in pieces of heavy armour plated in gold.

The owl tilted his head to one side. He had never seen a woman wearing Coronian armour before - but the owl had always maintained that if there was a single human in Corona who _should_ be wearing armour, it was the woman. The pieces hung awkwardly from her frame, rather like cardboard cut-outs for a child, too loose at the waist and too tight at the chest, but the woman was beaming at herself so hard in the mirror that it might as well have been tailored just for her.

The owl decided both the armour and the smile suited the woman, far better than the tattered servant’s dress and scowl that she usually wore. And to show his appreciation, he ruffled up his feathers and gave the woman a low, appreciative hoot.

The woman looked up.

* * *

“Well, look who decided to drop by for my big day.” 

Cass grinned. Owl was perched high on her halberds, staring imperiously down at her like a proud grandfather. She held up an arm - but he made a beeline for her shoulder instead, cool talons scrunching her burgundy undershirt, and nudged his head against her cheek in greeting. Cass nudged back with a chuckle. 

Cutesy animals had never really been her thing - cutesy _anything_ had never really been her thing - but Owl was different. As a rebellious six-year-old, she’d snuck out on an almost nightly basis to practice archery in the woods, and never paid much mind to the large red screech owl watching her with mild, dignified interest from a nearby branch. She’d affectionately named the spot Owl’s Clearing, then started sneaking him treats from the kitchens, and the rest had been history.

“You know, Old Lady Crowley gave me an earful yesterday, said I should be locking the window to keep out _that filthy old bird_...” Owl dug his talons into her shoulder as though daring her to try and do just that. “Ha! Don’t worry, I gave her an earful right back. Besides…”

She turned back to the mirror.

“...After today, she’ll have to start showing me some _real_ respect.”

Owl’s wise, thoughtful eyes met hers in the glass, and she stroked him absently with one gloved hand, scrutinising her reflection once more.

Helmet - check. She'd been up half the night polishing the damn thing, but Dad always said you could judge a decent guard by the state of his uniform, and Cass wasn’t about to take any chances with a rusty helmet, _no sir_. She tilted her head into the sunlight streaming in through the window, and smirked; the golden rays set the metal on fire.

Breastplate - check. Her fingers traced the familiar ridges of the seven-pointed sun.

Gloves - check. Soft, creamy leather covered her arms up to the elbows (the impracticality of the King’s colour choice still made her grind her teeth).

Spare daggers one, two and three - check, check, and check. (Should she take a fourth, just to be on the safe side? Better not. Didn’t want Dad to think she was paranoid.)

“This is it, Owl,” she whispered. “This is a very big day. No more stupid needlework, no more ironing tablecloths, no more - _servant_ nonsense. No more waiting on Old Lady Crowley’s beck and call.”

The woman in the mirror drew herself up tall, locking her hands behind her back. She stuck her chin up, high and proud. Ready for action. A guard's posture.

“It’s up to me now,” she breathed, and oh, just _saying_ it out loud made her heart soar in her chest. She gave the woman the kind of fierce, blazing look she usually reserved only for Dad when he’d done something particularly heroic.

Finally, a reflection she could be proud of.

Finally, a woman in control of her own destiny.

How many times had she stood in front of this mirror as a kid, jutting out her chest and clenching her tiny fists, Dad's helmet wobbling on her head whilst her legs drowned in his Captain’s boots? _She’d_ always known she was meant for glory - it was convincing others that took the legwork. Sixteen long, bitter, backbreaking years of it.

Cass crossed to her bed. There, in a pool of sunshine, lay her gleaming new guard’s shortsword (Stan and Pete had dropped it off last night, and she definitely, absolutely hadn’t fallen asleep grinning at it like some kind of sentimental idiot). Cass seized the handle, warm from the sun, and gazed at it a moment, emotion coursing through her - before sliding it lovingly into her scabbard with a familiar _shing_ of metal. No better sound on earth.

Turning for the door, Cass straightened her helmet; a few stray curls were creeping out from under the edges like they resented being tucked away, and Owl poked them back in with his beak. A soft, encouraging _hoot_ tickled her ear. 

“Thanks, buddy. Come on. That crown isn’t going to guard itself.”

* * *

Funny, how the world seemed a brighter place when you were basking in the glow of a hard-earned victory over sixteen years in the making. 

The sun was really rising now, painting the eastern walls crimson and gold and warming Cassandra’s cheek as she strutted through the palace, feeling the eyes of the court staring after her. The preparations for the Lantern Festival were in full swing, yet the servants still found time to whisper behind their hands as she passed; guards snapped to attention at their posts; a distractingly pretty kitchen girl even stopped dead in her tracks to stare, her eyes wide with awe, and Cass resisted the urge to walk past her a few more times.

So maybe she’d accidentally-on-purpose taken a slight detour through the busy east corridor to reach Dad’s office, but could anyone blame her? She’d _earned_ this. She wanted them all to see how wrong they’d been about her. 

No more pitying glances for _the Captain’s little tomboy_. No more raised eyebrows when she ran about in her guard’s tunic _._ No more jokes that made her stomach churn about packing her off to a local convent to _give the girl a proper education_ and _set her back on the straight and narrow_ -

Cass tossed her head back, fighting back a shudder. Other girls’ fathers threatened to ground them or take away their favourite things when they misbehaved, but Dad had only to _mention_ the word convent, and Cass would trip over herself to obey every order that fell from his lips.

Whatever. That was all in the past now. They’d lost, she’d won. Nothing - not tradition, not conventionality, not the walls of a convent - could stop her now. Corona had a lady soldier at last. This was _her_ victory, precious and golden and cupped in her hands at last. 

She was going to savour every minute of it.

* * *

At eight o’ clock sharp, Cass spoke those four magic words she’d been rehearsing since she was six - “Cassandra, reporting for duty, sir.” - and in return, Dad gave her one of those fierce, scowling half-smiles from beneath his bushy moustache that said _I’m proud of you_ louder than any words ever could. Cass felt as though she might take off and soar for joy.

Now, she was stationed in the crown room with her brand new squadron. Cass gazed fondly up at her halberd, stroking the freshly-sanded wood with her thumb. There was something about brandishing a halberd that just made a person feel good inside.

Not to mention, getting crown room detail for a first assignment was a mark of _hallowed_ esteem. 

She cast a routine glance around the room. Funny, she’d lived in the palace since she was four, but barely set foot in this most revered of all rooms with its glittering treasure gathering dust upon a white marble podium. It was rather like a cathedral, Cass thought, from the stained glass windows to the towering eaves that rustled with pigeons. Perhaps that made sense. The Lost Princess never _had_ received the funeral due to her. Perhaps it was fitting that her only relic - this small piece of her that the King and Queen had left - had been laid to rest in a room that felt more like a church than anything else. A beautiful tomb, of sorts. 

How else could you bury your daughter, when her body had never been found?

As a kid, Cass had played a silly, secret game with herself. She would become the greatest warrior Corona had ever seen, the hero who starred in all Dad’s bedtime stories - and then one day, she would ride out, and rescue the Lost Princess. She had a lacy, frothy horror of a dress that Dad had never been able to force her to wear, but draped over a chair with a cushion on top, it made for a perfect princess, and she could drag it around her bedroom as needed for various dragon-slaying, wilderness-traversing, pirate-hunting exploits.

The Lost Princess of her games was always enamoured with her rescuer, swooning over her strength and bravery (especially if Cass kissed her awake from a sleeping curse - Dad's stories had been _very_ inspiring). Browsing in the library one day, she’d read about girls marrying girls in Invgarr, and charged back to her room in excitement to end her own game in a similar fashion. More and more, she felt Dad watching her, hawklike, as she played. And then one day, just before her twelfth birthday, the lacy dress had gone missing, replaced by a magnificent ceremonial mace (a late birthday gift, Dad insisted, not meeting her gaze) - and that was the end of her Lost Princess games.

The memory still made her want to sink into the floor with humiliation. It was just one more unspoken _thing_ hanging over her and Dad like a dark cloud. Not raining yet, but ever present. 

“Psst. Cassandra.”

Cass jumped, startled out of her reverie by Pete’s familiar nasally voice.

“Hey. Cassandra. Hey.”

Brilliant. Now Stan was joining in. They were like a couple of kids, following each other’s lead. Cass sighed through her teeth, letting her head drop against her halberd. Hadn’t any of these idiots read _A Compendium of Corona Law And Procedure_ _?_

“Boys. You do realise you've been on duty for exactly four minutes and already broken protocol. That’s got to be some kind of record.”

“We just wanted to say congrats on getting your first assign -”

She silenced them with a glare. They winced in unison, and made the wise choice to shut up.

What if Dad walked in and found her men acting like a bunch of gossiping maids? Not to brag, but giving a new recruit like herself command of an entire squadron was pretty much unheard of. It was a mark of how much Dad trusted her. She could feel the responsibility pressing on her shoulders like a physical weight. Nothing she couldn’t handle, obviously, but she wasn’t about to let any rules slide. 

Not with her reputation, her career, her _everything_ on the line.

The room held in perfect, serene stillness. Dust motes floated through the air, illuminated by the streams of sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows. Cass felt her lips tug up in a smile, unable to stop herself. 

_I won’t let you down, Dad. Trust me. I’ve got this._

Beside her, Stan let out a sneeze.

“Eugh. Hayfever?” a voice drawled from behind them. 

“Yeah.”

Wait a second.

From _behind_ them. 

Cass whipped around so fast she nearly decapitated both guards on either side of her with her halberd. 

There, balanced on the podium with one hand tucked beneath his perfectly chiseled chin and his legs in the air like some kind of absurd trapeze artist, was a man. A man whose goatee every guard in Corona had learned to memorise. A man whose very existence had probably taken about ten years off Dad’s lifespan. 

Right there in front of her, dangling the crown of the Lost Princess from his little finger, and grinning at her like a cat with his paw in the cream.

Cassandra _yelled_.

“THIEF!”

Her voice echoed to the rafters like a fire bell and a cry to battle all rolled into one - and the crown room collapsed into chaos.

Soldiers shouted. Halberds whirled through the air. Rider made a strangled yelping sound and swung ( _he was on a rope_ , Cass realised with a dead sinking sensation in her stomach) out across the room, crown held high in his hand and glittering in the sun. 

“Uh, guys? Could really use a lift, right about now!” he called jovially in the direction of the ceiling, and Cass _screamed_ -

“ _Don't let him get away!_ ”

The shrill _shing_ of metal split the air, and suddenly the air was full of flying daggers, whistling past her ear as she threw herself up the podium steps. Rider flailed like a fish on a line. Cass threw her head back to the ceiling, her mind racing, a plan forming, her own dagger cool and deadly against her palm - 

A perfect square of crystal blue sky gazed back at her.

_Gotcha._

A skylight had cut into the ceiling, flanked by two burly redheads that Cass recognised from their wanted posters. She shot them a look of pure venom - and raised her arm.

Her first dagger caught the left Stabbington in the shoulder, sending him reeling backwards with a roar of pain. His brother followed suit a second later. A shower of blood rained down from the ceiling like tiny rubies, speckling Cass’s cheeks. She swiped it away, smearing her glove scarlet. A vicious kind of pleasure coursed through her veins. 

_Two down, one to go._

Above her, Rider let out a sound that could only be described as a squeal of terror. Cass rounded to face him, grinning viciously, and raised her last dagger - 

\- Just as Rider swung feet-first into the nearest towering stained glass window and shattered it into a thousand pieces.

An almighty _crash_ shook the ground.

“ _Take cover!_ ” Cass yelled, throwing herself to the floor. Broken glass rained down on her men in a deadly, glittering storm. “Shield your eyes!”

Another _smash_ made her ears ring as Rider hit a second window. Sheets of glass _thunked_ into the steps like meat cleavers, scattering her men in every direction. Tiny, lethal shards whizzed through the air. Glass pinged off her helmet, and Cass dropped her dagger to clap her hands over her eyes, squinting through her fingers.

The room sparkled like the centre of a diamond - mad, blinding, beautiful.

A cold breeze whipped at her hair; Rider had taken out half the windows. Through her fingers, she could see him still swinging, but less wildly now, losing momentum. His hands scrambled at the knot on his waist, and then a second later he was loose, scrambling up the rope like the world-class criminal that he was -

“- Oh no you _DON’T!_ ” Cass snarled, jumping to her feet, broken glass be _damned_. She threw herself up the dais and made a wild leap for the rope. Rider yelped as the rope jerked, sending them both careening sideways and yanking Cass off her feet. The air whistled past her ears. She snatched at Rider's ankle, missing by inches. 

“Get _back_ here, thieving bastard -”

“Geez, lady!” Rider chuckled uneasily, shooting a split-second glance over his shoulder as they raced each other to the top of the rope, and for the first time, Cass saw a glint of fear in his eyes. “Anyone would think this was personal!” 

She snarled, sweat trickling from under her helmet. “You have no idea.”

“Yeesh, o- _kay_ , sorry I asked...” He hauled himself through the skylight and sprawled out his side, watching her climb with a faintly bemused expression. Her arms were starting to shake. “ _Someone’s_ clearly working through some stuff.”

Coward. Filthy coward. Taunting her when she couldn’t reach him. She hissed, too spitting mad to force actual words out of her mouth, and Rider chuckled - a low, _genuine_ chuckle of unabashed amusement that was somehow worse than mockery would have been.

“That bad, huh? Don’t take it too hard, cobra lady. Just think -” he twirled the crown idly around one finger, a dizzying cartwheel of silver and diamonds - “this little bauble is gonna make sure fine, hardworking criminals such as _moi_ get to live the life we’ve always dreamed of, and who do we have to thank for that?” He _yanked_ the rope for emphasis, and Cass bit back a yell as the room lurched about her, sending her stomach up into her mouth. “Uh, you of course!”

His grin was dastardly, perfect white teeth gleaming in the sun, and when he _winked_ , she nearly screamed.

She was going to kill him.

“Get on with it, pretty boy,” growled a voice, out of sight beyond the skylight. “Put that crown in the satchel and let’s get out of here. The Baron’s waiting.”

“Relax, Burnsy, I told you, the Baron and I go way back…”

Her lungs were starting to burn. Rider’s face shimmered before her eyes, giving her a pouting sort of look with wonky eyebrows that some vague part of her brain supposed might, possibly, in another dimension, be construed as _suave_. He snapped her a theatrical salute. 

“At ease, cobra lady. Don't worry, you’ll get over me. They always do. Oh, and uh, here’s a little piece of advice for you. _If_ you’d rather a devilishly handsome rogue didn’t keep nicking heavily guarded trinkets from you palace folks...”

The rope _screeched_ against the edge of the skylight as Rider jerked it up, hard, to his chest. Cass gasped, face screwed up, _forcing_ herself to keep staring up, up, up into that perfect, disgusting, smirking face as Rider bent towards her. The scent of sweat and cologne stung in her nose.

_I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you._

His grin seemed to fill her whole vision.

“Next time? Try doing your job, and actually _guarding_ the dang thing.”

He let go of the rope. 

* * *

Afterwards, they told her Dad had skidded into the room just in time to watch her fall.

Afterwards, they told her the rope skittered on the edge of the skylight and broke her descent just enough for Stan and Pete to catch her before she hit the floor. 

Afterwards, they told her she’d yelled Rider’s name as she plummeted through the air, one hand still outstretched to the skylight, as though hoping to draw herself back up through sheer rage and willpower alone.

But no such luck.

* * *

“Cassandra. _Cassandra_.”

Hands, shaking her shoulders. Pain, throbbing beneath her armour. Light, winking beyond her closed lids.

Cass groaned, scrubbing a hand over her eyes and forcing them open.

“Where is he.” The words croaked out of her mouth before she’d even consciously _thought_ them. “Where’s Rider.”

She blinked. Fierce brown eyes and a bushy mustache swam into view above her. 

“Dad!” she burst out, shoving herself up on her elbows and gazing frantically around them. “What happened? Did we catch h -”

She cut off, horror closing up her throat as she took in the sight of the room. 

For one wild moment, Cass thought it had _snowed_. The floor was carpeted in white. Shattered glass covered every tile, glittering like snowflakes. Torn banners fluttered forlornly in the breeze. Windows gaped empty of glass. Spatters of blood caught the sunlight. A few confused pigeons hobbled about.

Servants were everywhere, armed with newspaper and gloves, and a gentle _clink, clink, clink_ filled the air as they swept the floor. And peeking through the open doors - Cass felt her heart drop to her stomach - it looked as though half the court had come running to see the damage, a veritable army of servants and courtiers and every station in-between. Old Lady Crowley. The pretty kitchen girl. Each wore identical masks of horror.

Over Dad’s shoulder, her squadron stood a little way back, dishevelled and solemn. A few were picking glass splinters out of their uniforms. Stan nursed a bloodied cheek. 

All of them were looking anywhere except at her. 

“He escaped.”

Dad’s voice was like stone. Flat and empty. A statement of fact. 

Cass blinked.

_No. Not that. Anything but that._

Somewhere, deep down in her chest, she could feel her emotions unravelling like a ball of yarn tossed down a staircase. Rage, despair - _guilt_ \- rolling over and over, tangling into one horrible, dizzying force. Her hands started to shake beneath their gloves.

Cass drew in a sharp breath.

“I’m going to catch him,” she declared, scrambling to her feet and lurching towards the door - Dad seized her arm, hauling her back. “He had two great redheaded brutes with him, the Stabbington brothers, they’ll have left a blood trail, I can follow -”

“You’ll do no such thing. You’ll remain here in Corona. That’s an order, soldier.” 

Her chin snapped up, eyes locking with her father’s. “What?”

He only looked at her. Silent. Cold. His grip was like steel on her arm.

“You’ve done enough, Cassandra.”

_Done enough. Done enough. Done enough._

Silence rang in the air between them, louder than the shattering windows.

“Make way for the King!” called a voice from the door, and Dad’s grip went rigid around her arm. All around them, the scattered servants dropped into hurried curtseys, like blades of grass bending in the wind. Dad snapped his free arm into a salute. Cass moved to copy him, but he grunted sharply. 

“Let me handle this.” 

“But D - _sir_ -”

And then the towering figure of King Frederic stood framed in the doorway, and Cass forgot all about saluting. A terrible hush swept over the room.

_Oh Sun above, what have I done?_

The King was resplendent in heavy velvet robes and chain-of-gold, his bearded face its usual mask of cold, dignified composure that always made Cass feel like criminal waiting to be judged. But it was his eyes that made her heart clench in her chest - the muted, frozen grief beneath the composure, like a man trapped in his own nightmare. 

Or rather, sent back to it. 

Cass had never learned what the King’s reaction had been, the night the Lost Princess was stolen from her crib - Dad refused to talk about it - but she imagined it was something like what she saw in front of her now. Over the years, she’d heard the story of that terrible night so many times it had morphed into an odd kind of almost-memory. Dad had ridden out with a search party - and returned a few days later, ashen-faced and exhausted, with her own tiny, bedraggled four-year-old self wrapped in his cloak instead.

Rumour had it that the Queen had spotted him from her bedroom window as he staggered across the palace courtyard, cradling a bundle to his chest, and had raced out to meet him with tears of joy streaming down her face - joy that turned to despair, to howls of grief, when she realised the little girl he’d brought home wasn’t _hers_.

No wonder Dad refused to talk about it.

“Is it true?”

The King’s voice was impossibly steady. Somehow, that made it all the worse. Cass wished he would rage and scream. Despite his impressive stature, the robes draping his body seemed suddenly too big for him.

“Is it gone?”

Dad was saying something, but Cass only caught bits and pieces. Something about _my daughter’s actions_ and _dealt with accordingly_ and _begs your forgiveness_ , but Cass wasn’t listening. She was watching the King, as he drifted across the room like a ghost and climbed the steps of the dais with deliberate, perfect composure, touching the empty space on the marble top where the crown had stood, gently, _tenderly_ , like a father might touch his sleeping baby -

Cass jerked her gaze away, something like a rusty knife twisting in her gut.

“...Cassandra -” Dad dropped his head towards her, lowering his voice for only her to hear. He swallowed, and Cass watched the movement travel down his throat. “I have to treat you as I would any other probationary recruit. I’m sorry, soldier. You’ve had your chance.” 

There was a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor at the edge of his lips as he gazed down at her. Then he raised his voice, for the King to hear, for them _all_ to hear.

“You are hereby relieved of your duties as a royal guard of Corona with immediate effect.” 

“...Sir, I -”

“Give me your armour.”

“But if you’d just let me -”

“Give it to me.”

“Dad, _please_ -”

“ _Your armour, Cassandra!_ ” he roared, sending the pigeons scattering to the rafters. Cass flinched. Suddenly, it wasn’t Dad in front of her anymore. It was the Captain. _Her_ Captain, his face the same shade of scarlet as his uniform, firing her from the Royal Guard.

In front of her entire squadron.

In front of the court.

In front of the _King_.

All of a sudden, Cass found she couldn’t look at anyone. Nor could she speak another word. Shame constricted her throat, choking down all the things she wanted to scream in his face, in _all_ their faces. With fumbling fingers, she unfastened her armour.

Helmet, covered in scratches - check. Breastplate, smudged with blood - check. Torn gloves - check. 

She held out each piece in turn, feeling like a little girl caught playing dress up.

The Captain took them from her without so much as a glance. He had eyes only for the King now, his face wearing the same expressionless mask of composure. “Go to your chambers. Put on your servant’s dress. Wait for me there.”

Cass turned on her heel - and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	2. To Catch A Thief

* * *

> _“I've swiped a dozen treasures, robbed a hundred vaults,  
> _ _Left a million ladies needing smelling salts  
> _ _And with the stolen gold and stolen hearts  
> _ _My bad boy cred is off the charts  
> _ _You see my posters around, I bet you're a fan  
> _ _Flynn Rider: Wanted Man”_
> 
> _\- Eugene, Wanted Man, Tangled: The Musical  
> _

* * *

_Wait. Wait. Wait._

Such a tiny word - but it slapped her across the face harder than any physical punishment ever could. Cass staggered to a halt in the east corridor, gasping for air. She’d run flat out from the crown room, no thought in her head except to get _away._

For sixteen years, that word had haunted her. Like a ticking hand on the clock of life, inching its way a little further around the face with every wasted year that slipped past. Years of sore knees and soap-wrinkled fingers and sneaking off to train whenever she could. Watching her life go by had been like watching water trickle through her hands, impossible to hold, no matter how hard she clenched them together.

Year after year, Dad told her _wait._

Wait, until you’re older. Wait, until you’re fully trained. Wait, until you've proven you can take proper responsibility. Wait, until you're confident in your servant duties. Wait, until the court gets used to the idea of a lady guard. Wait, until the King has less on his mind. Wait, until the right position opens up.

You need to be patient, Cassandra. It's not that simple, Cassandra.

(This isn't _Ingvarr_ , Cassandra.)

A tiny sound escaped her chest, something ugly and broken that she couldn't quite choke down in time. Cass hurled her fist into the nearest stone wall. Beat it over and over, _thud-thud-thud_ , trying to drown out the sound of Dad's voice in her head. Her knuckles throbbed. The skin tore. A good, sharp pain. Pain she could hold onto, to stop herself losing it.

She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't. She _wouldn't._

Cass slumped against the wall, her stinging fist dropping to her side, and gulped down a shuddering breath.

 _Come on, girl._ _You can find a way out of this._ _Think. Just think._

She opened her eyes.

Beside her, through the window, the kingdom of Corona lay in a familiar sun-drenched haze of white, pink and gold. Little thatched roofs. Winding cobblestone streets. The great bridge that joined Old Corona to the island. A figure streaking across it, a smear of blue on an otherwise perfectly still painting, his satchel bouncing by his side.

Wait - his _satchel._

Cass straightened up, wiping her knuckles on her undershirt. No way. It couldn’t be. She cranked the window open, squinting through the sunlight. It _couldn’t_ be, and yet -

She'd seen enough wanted posters at this point to know Flynn Rider when she saw him.

_I could still fix this._

Cass wet her lips, her mind racing. Any second now, Rider would hit the woods. Cass knew those woods like the back of her hand. More than that, she knew the Corona tunnels _that led there_ from all those times she’d snuck out to Owl’s Clearing for nighttime training. And Rider was on foot. She’d catch him up in no time.

_You’ll do no such thing. You’ll remain here in Corona. That’s an order, soldier._

Cass winced at the memory. If she came back empty-handed, if she _failed_ \- well, if she failed, it was all over. She wasn’t sure what was worse - two years confinement for insubordination, or being sent to a convent after all. Either way, she’d be locked behind walls and left to rot. 

...Would Dad really let that happen?

She didn’t want to consider the answer to that question. It hurt too much. 

But if she could get that crown back, if she could capture the legendary Flynn Rider, if she could stand before Dad and the kingdom not as a disgraced recruit, but as a _hero_ …

Dad had been tracking Rider even longer than she’d been begging to join the guard, and _that_ was saying something. He even had them using Rider’s old wanted posters as targets for archery practice. How proud would he be to see his very own daughter put the guy behind bars at last?

She’d waited so long, on everyone else.

It was their turn to wait on _her_ , now.

Wait until she rode into the palace courtyard with Flynn Rider slung behind her, in handcuffs at last. Wait until the cobblestones shook with her squadron's cheers. Wait until Dad looked into her face with that fierce, blazing look and told her _well done_ , and _I’m proud of you_ , and _you’re back on the guard, soldier._

Her heart started to beat in her chest. Slowly at first, and then faster, bolder, hard against her ribs.

Cass slammed the window shut.

Would anyone notice a missing horse, in the chaos of the crown being stolen? 

* * *

There wasn’t much Cass could remember about her early years at the palace. Still - a few sharp, clear flashes of memory had always stuck in her mind like pieces of glass, untarnished by the passing years. 

Dad, shaping her fingers around the handle of a tiny wooden sword.

Dad, rocking her back and forth in his arms when she screamed herself awake from nightmares she could never remember.

And Dad, on his knees in the straw behind her, holding her steady as she wobbled on tip-toes to stroke Fidella’s velveteen nose, and the whiskery-scratch of his mustache against her hair as he murmured, _You like her, little one? This is Fidella. I picked her out, specially for you. You want to try riding her? You’ll make a fine pair, I’d wager. Give it a few years, and you’ll be showing the boys how it’s done…_

Now, bent low in the saddle and flying through the trees at a pace that could outstrip even Maximus on a good day, Cass chewed her lip and tried not to think about what kind of extra punishment she'd get for stealing a horse (and a fistful of arrest warrants from Dad's office) on top of everything else. Even if said stealing _was_ for the sake of a heroic mission to bring a world-renowned criminal to justice. King Frederic wasn’t exactly big on semantics when it came to crime. And who could blame him? His own daughter had been the victim of a crime more terrible and tragic than anything Corona had seen in centuries.

Besides, thanks to the Purge and the King’s subsequent reforms, crime in Corona had plummeted over the past eighteen years. The King’s iron-fisted approach might seem harsh to outsiders, but Cass argued that there was a reason Coronians were happy to let their children play in the streets after sundown. And as Dad always said, if you stuck to the straight and narrow, you had nothing to fear. Only the guilty had cause for complaint.

Speaking of the guilty -

Cass seized the reins and brought Fidella skidding to a halt.

A familiar blue-and-white figure was flickering between the trees ahead, where the forest thinned out and the ground dropped away into the Old Corona Cliffs. The figure seemed to be wrestling with a tall silver-grey stallion. Had Rider stolen a horse too?

She didn’t think she could hate him any more if she _tried_.

“Stay here, girl!”

Vaulting off Fidella’s back, Cass looped her reins around the branch of a nearby bimberry bush and set off running. She heard, rather than saw, the pair of figures tumble over the edge of the cliff with near-identical screams, and Cass felt a brief, sharp stab of grief for the horse - _Rider_ could probably survive the fall, but there was no way that poor creature could. Cass slid herself over the cliffside and scrambled down, dropping to a crouch as soon as her feet hit the ground and peering through the bushes.

Not ten feet away, Rider stooped before an outcrop of rock. His shoulders heaved as he fought to catch his breath, one hand sweeping that ridiculous, floppy hair away from his sweaty forehead, the other pulling aside an emerald curtain of hanging vines, revealing an opening within. He disappeared inside. 

_Perfect,_ Cass thought, reaching behind her back and closing her fingers around the hilt of her sword. _Game over, Rider. I’m going to trap you inside your own hole like the thieving rat that you are._

She crept forward. Her crossbow bumped gently against her side - she’d brought it as backup, just in case Rider proved as ready with a sword as he did with dumb one-liners. The cliff loomed above her, casting a shadow across the grass that swallowed her in its cool embrace as she approached. Emerald fronds tickled her shoulders as she ducked into the cave. Inside, all was cool and dark, sand _thumping_ beneath her boots, and she staggered out the other side into -

_“Whoa.”_

A great sweeping valley, flanked by cliffs as tall as the royal palace itself, like great slabs of chalk carved out of the landscape. A waterfall cascaded down one side, the soft rush of water mingled with birdsong. Wildflowers sprinkled across lush green grass. A peaceful place. Beautiful, and yet - lonely somehow. Walled in by cliffs. Tucked away from the world. 

And in the centre of it all, there rose a tower. A tower that, frankly, had no right to be there. Because if there was one thing Cass prided herself on - right up there with swordsmanship, archery, knife-throwing, wrestling, and the ability to tear a man’s ego to shreds with her tongue - it was cartography. She’d studied maps (and charted her own) ever since Dad had taught her to hold a pencil, and this tower wasn’t on any of them.

Had it once been the home of a woodcutter, perhaps? A rebel base for the Saporian separatists? Or an abandoned guard tower? Cass frowned up at the cliffs. Pretty dumb place to build a guard tower, you couldn’t see much with those in the way, and besides, it only had one window -

Her eyes widened. 

One window, with the shutters standing wide open, and none other than Flynn Rider scaling the wall with his bare hands beneath it. 

A hideout. Of course! He probably had a gang of thieves waiting up there _right now_ , guarding the rest of their plunder. And Rider had led her straight to it like the complete moron he was.

Cass snatched up her crossbow - and fired.

_Zing!_

Her arrow soared through the air like a bird, arcing across the clearing and _thunking_ off the tower wall - exactly where Rider’s hand had been a second before. Cass cursed under her breath. _So_ close. 

Rider let out a screech like a cat having its tail trod on. 

“Ah, whoa, okay, _what!_ ” He swung one-handed, twisting in the air to try and see who had shot at him. “How are you even working that thing with hooves, you crazy h -”

He cut off, eyes locking with hers. The colour drained from every inch of his perfect, chiseled face.

“You’re - you’re not the crazy horse.”

Cass grinned savagely. “Oh, I’m much worse.”

“Ha! Ha. That's - ha. So we’re swapping out the equine hitman for Lady Frowns-a-lot, that’s - that’s just - _peachy_.”

He hugged his satchel a little tighter to his chest, and Cass felt a vicious twist of pleasure in her gut. Just like basic training all over again. They always laughed, before she taught them to cower.

“What’s the matter, Rider?” she drawled, sauntering across the clearing and fitting another arrow to her crossbow. “Aren’t you pleased to see me - what was it? _Actually_ _doing my job._ ”

She watched his throat move as he gulped, and her grin stretched all the wider.

“Starting to wish you’d kept your big mouth closed back in the crown room?”

“Oh-ho- _kay_ , first off, my mouth is proportionally sound, thank you very much, ask any girl in Corona - you know I can _see_ you retching even all the way up here, right? - and second off, look, I’ll give you this much, lady: you’re scary as hell and you don’t give up easy.”

“Wrong. I don’t give up, _period_.”

"Figures. Oh, oh, hey! You know what you remind me of? This deadly scorpion my buddy Lance stepped on in Vardaros last year! You know, because you're both vicious, cold-blooded killing machines with no visible personality and some _serious_ anger management issues -"

_Zing!_

Her second arrow whizzed past his boot, and Rider squeaked, curling his legs up beneath him like a kid stuck in a tree. What a goon. Was this really the guy every girl in the kingdom had lost their heads over? What, was _thieving manchild_ all the rage with the ladies these days?

Girls never ceased to baffle her.

“Tell me, Flynn Rider. How does it feel to be cornered at last?”

“Uh, excuse me.” Rider clasped his free hand to his heart in mock-insult, and flopped sideways against the wall with a theatricality that was frankly dangerous given his position. “Still _technically_ a free man, up here. These gorgeous hands have yet to make the acquaintance of a pair of handcuffs. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, lady.”

He paused.

“Or in your case, I don’t know, _scorplings_ or something. Do scorpions lay eggs? You know, I’ve never really thought about -”

“ _Are you always this moronic_ ,” Cass hissed through gritted teeth, “or only when you know you’ve been beaten?”

“Nah.” Rider tossed the satchel up and over the lip of the tower window, and oh great, just _great_ , now she'd have to climb the tower to get it back... “I’m making a special effort just for you.”

Her third arrow missed his stupid little goetee by inches (“Not the face, _not the face!_ ”). Cass cursed. Clearly, a lifetime of running from the law had taught the guy how to _dodge._

“Surrender, Rider,” she called, pacing back and forth beneath him whilst he squirmed above her. “Come quietly, and I might even put in a good word for you with my father.”

“Pfff. And who’s lucky enough to have _you_ for a daughter, scorpion lady? Secretary for Sarcasm? Chancellor of Really Bad Aim? Minister of Haircuts Against Humanity?”

“The Captain of the Royal Guard.”

Rider blanched. “Oh. Oh, that’s. That’s just _unfair_.”

Cass grinned, teeth bared beneath it. 

“Wonder what they’ll give you, Rider,” she murmured, toying with the string of her crossbow and relishing the way he flinched with every twitch of her fingers. “A few decades rotting in the palace dungeons?”

 _Zing!_

“Exile to the Prison Barge of the Lost Sea?”

_Zing!_

“Oh wait, wait, wait. I forgot. You just stole the crown of the Lost Princess. That makes you an enemy of the state now too! Duh! So you get extra- _s_ _pecial_ treatment!”

_Zing!_

And at last, her arrow grazed his shoulder with a _scritch_ of tearing fabric, and Rider fell with a scream that echoed up to the cliffs and back. He landed with a muffled _flump_ in the thick grass clustered about the base of the tower.

Cass threw her crossbow aside. She advanced on him, tossing back her curls. Rider spat out leaves. His shoulder bore a gash, and blood blossomed across the sleeve like a strange, ugly sort of flower spreading its petals. 

_Serves him right._

Seizing Rider’s collar, Cass hauled him up and slammed him back against the tower with enough force to send loose pieces of brick clattering down the walls.

“Mark my words, you thieving bastard,” she hissed, inches from his face, his pulse racing beneath her fingers and his eyes wide with raw, perfect, pristine terror as they gazed into hers. “I’ll watch you swing from the gallows if it’s the last thing I do.”

Triumph soared in her chest, sweet and blazing hot, like the sun on her shoulders.

_I did it, Dad. Showing the boys how it's done. Just like you said._

“Feeling cornered now, Rider?”

* * *

In retrospect, she should have known it was all too perfect to last.

Rider went still, all of a sudden. His eyes drifted, focussing on a point somewhere over her shoulder. Blinked. Hesitated.

And then, impossibly...smirked.

Cass dug her nails into his neck. “ _What_ _are you_ -”

“I did try to warn you, scorpion lady. Don’t count your chickens -”

There was a wet _thunk_ of metal tearing flesh as the side of her head exploded in pain.

“- before they hatch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't worry - things look up for Cass in the next chapter. I promise!
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	3. Blood and Sunshine

* * *

> _“You were supposed to steal this (crown) for me, years ago."_
> 
> _\- The Baron to Eugene, Flynnposter, S3 Ep17_

* * *

The world swam.

"Easy there, lady, that's it..."

Rider’s voice drifted to her as though from very far away, patting the hand at his throat in a slow, patronising sort of way. Cass swayed and staggered against him, clinging to consciousness with trembling fingers. She didn’t need to ask who had clubbed her. Even blind and stupid with pain, she could put two and two together.

_Dirty rotten sneaks, those Stabbingtons, attacking from behind..._

“...Oh man. You're in for it now." He didn't sound nearly as pleased about it as Cass expected him to. "If that stuff gets into your bloodstream, it is _nasty -_ ” 

What the hell was he on about? Hands clasped her shoulders, guiding her to the wall of the tower as her knees buckled, letting her slump into the grass. 

“- Look,” Rider muttered, low and hurried, only for her to hear, “ _look_. I just - if it gets worse. Snuggly Duckling. Lady with a skull necklace. Smuggles the stuff for the Baron. She’ll have an anti-venom. You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Don’t - n-need your - _help -_ ” Cass spat, swinging her arm blindly, drunkenly in the direction of Rider’s voice.

“Oh, shut up. Flynn Rider’s a thief, not a murderer.” He coughed loudly. “Patchy! Burnsy! Man, am I glad to see you! Let me tell you, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s ending a partnership on a sour note...”

“Where’s the satchel, Rider.”

“Satchel? What satchel? Oh - oh right, _that_ satchel. Thought that might come up. Listen, about the satchel - first off, I do have it, obviously, just not, uh, on my person, so to speak. See, I wanted to make sure we stashed it someplace safe and sound, that’s why I - _pretended_ to ditch you two and ran ahead with it, ha, obviously...”

Cass dug her palm into her head. The wound was burning, almost _fizzling_ beneath her touch, like she’d branded herself with a hot iron. Her fingertips came away dripping crimson and green. Wait a second. Crimson and -

Horror closed up her throat. 

_Kai venom._

The club must have been branded with it. Of course. Of _course_. The Baron of Vardaros, kingpin of the most legendary crime syndicate in all the Seven Kingdoms, had a - _thing_ about spiders, didn’t he? Rumour had it he kept a venomous Kai spider, _alive_ , in a hollowed-out ruby ring on his left hand, to use on his enemies as he pleased. It had been forbidden in Corona ever since the Purge eighteen years ago.

And it was currently burning what felt like a gaping hole right into her skull.

Cold rage made her hand shake around the hilt of her sword.

_You have no idea who you’re dealing with, Rider._

Slowly, Cass raised her sword and wiped the edge of the blade across the wound on the side of her head. It made a soft, slick, horrible sound, and droplets of sickly lime-green scattered the grass beneath her knees. The blade gleamed wetly in the sunlight with a mixture of blood and venom. Cass locked her jaw.

Hatred pulsed through her veins, cool and clean as liquid ice.

_This ends now._

“...telling the truth, guys, I swear, I don’t have it, _I don’t have the satchel_ … _!_ ”

Cass spun on her knee and launched herself to her feet. 

Reality blurred. She didn’t see Rider’s gasp as he whirled to face her, only the smirk he’d worn as he shattered the windows of the crown room and all her hopes and dreams along with it. She didn’t hear Rider’s yelp of terror, only Dad’s bellowing roar as he stripped away the title she’d spent sixteen years slaving for. She didn’t feel the savage cry build in her throat, only the cold stone beneath her knees as she scrubbed floors in her servant’s dress. The white cliffs towered above her, high and sheer as convent walls.

Cass raised her sword. Threw herself at Rider. _Slashed_ \- 

Rider screamed.

Time halted. Cass staggered sideways. Her sword swung limply from her hand. Vaguely, she registered Rider whimpering, hands clutched to his face, blood seeping between his fingertips. 

_I got him. I really got him, this time._

She felt no satisfaction, no leap of victory in her chest. She felt only numb.

Cass swayed on the spot, blood dripping silently off her chin. She watched in a detached kind of stupor as one of the Stabbingtons seized Rider by the waist and flung him over his shoulder. Like a pair of charging bulls, the two brothers loped away across the grass towards the cave entrance. They were getting away. She had to follow - 

_What about the satchel?_

The satchel. Cass shook herself. She had to grab the satchel. She had to grab it _now_. Before dear old Burnsy and Patchy realised Flynn Rider was, maybe for the first time in his life, telling the truth. From the sounds of it, he’d tried to give them the slip and take the crown for himself (because of _course_ he had). Were the Stabbingtons out for revenge on their old buddy? 

Maybe she should have introduced herself. They could start a club.

Bottom line - they wouldn’t make it far. Rider wasn’t superhuman, no matter what his fangirls might claim; they’d have to stop and treat his wounds. He had a grazed shoulder and...and whatever she’d done to his face. Cass swallowed. Rider’s blood fell in a gentle _drip-drip-drip_ from her sword, spattering her boots, and her stomach swam uneasily.

She shoved the feeling away. Stupid, pointless to even think about it. The King would hang him regardless, as soon as she dragged him back to Corona.

Now, she had to _focus_.

Cass sheathed her sword, rolled up her sleeves, and staggered around to face the tower. Her head _throbbed_ , and the tower seemed to sway above her, a miserable grey spire looming against the cheerful, freshly scrubbed sky. Cass surveyed it with narrowed eyes. She’d scaled cliffs as a teenager, in the hope it would give her muscles like Dad someday (it hadn’t - but she was working on it), and how different was a crumbling stone tower, really? 

If pretty-boy Flynn Rider could climb it, then so could she.

It was backbreaking work. The hot sun beat down on her back, and her boots skidded and scrambled for footholds all the way up. Her wound was burning for attention by the time she rolled herself over the windowsill of the tower and into the cool, dark interior. Panting, Cass straightened up, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the gloom -

A pair of eyes, wide and green as a spring meadow, gazed into hers with an expression of pure, unadulterated terror.

_CLANG._

The world went black.

* * *

There was a woman in her tower.

There was a woman in her tower.

_There was. A woman. In her tower._

A real-life woman, from Outside. Like a picture from one of her books brought to life, paper and ink transformed into flesh and blood. Arms. Legs. A mop of inky curls half-obscuring her face - they reminded her of Mother’s, actually, but Mother was the last person she wanted to think about right now, so she shoved that thought quickly away. 

Right - _there_ , lying spreadeagled in front of her and getting mud and blood and bits of grass all over the floor. She might have painted her there. She wished she _had_ painted her there, because then she’d just be ground shells and bimberry juice, and those things couldn’t hurt her. 

... _Would_ she hurt her?

Rapunzel peeped out from behind her dress form, trembling from head to foot. Pascal, tucked into the crook of her shoulder, let out a low, cautious _squeak_. She tightened her grip on her frying pan. Inch by careful inch, she tiptoed over and dropped to her knees beside the woman. She nudged her shoulder. Nothing. The woman was out cold. 

_But she might wake at any moment, flower. You must run and hide whilst you still can! Let Mother deal with her when she comes home, there’s a good girl..._

Gingerly, she used the curved edge of the pan to pull back her upper lip (Mother had specifically said _men_ with pointy teeth, but the woman was wearing men’s clothes, so she figured it was best to double check).

And then she brushed a few curls from the woman’s face - and her heart stopped pounding, and did an odd, swooping thing instead. 

_Oh._

The woman had a face that was soft and sharp all at once, as though she'd been hacked furiously into existence from a chunk of porcelain, and then had the edges buffed out. Wide jaw. Thin lips. Feathery dark lashes dusting square cheekbones. Against the pallor of her skin, all those soft, shining, tousled curls were even more striking. Ebony against snow. 

Rapunzel stared. And stared. And stared.

A feeling bloomed in her chest - a mixture of wonder, and curiosity, and a warm, unnameable _something_ that she’d never felt before and couldn’t find a word for. 

_Wow._

So that was how they looked, people from the Outside World. So similar, yet so different to her and Mother. Strange, she’d expected - 

Huh. What _had_ she expected?

Rapunzel frowned, thinking back over everything Mother had told her about the people from Outside. Their selfishness, their cruelty, their hunger for the money and fame her hair could bring them. Mother used to sketch them all over the floor with a piece of flint, explaining each in turn, whilst Rapunzel cowered behind her shoulder and hid her face in her hair.

Ruffians with snarling faces. Dark wizards, wearing goat-skull masks and horns. Thugs, with metal-studded clubs the size of her whole body. Guys-on-stilts, tall enough to reach a clawed hand inside her tower and scoop her out like a mouse from its hole. Cannibals, dripping blood from their fangs.

...This woman didn’t look like _any_ of those.

The warmth in Rapunzel’s chest flared hopefully at the thought.

Perhaps this woman was different. Judging by the sword strapped to her back, she had to be some kind of a lady-knight (how cool was _that_ ) and knights were good people, weren’t they? They rescued princesses and battled monsters.

The woman looked as though she’d been battling _several_ monsters. A dark, livid stain was spreading across the floor surrounding her head, shimmering like that scarlet paint that Mother brought her sometimes, and tinged with curious streaks of green.

Rapunzel swallowed, and the warm feeling in her chest went cold. The woman was hurt. She must be in terrible pain. A thug must have slashed her with exactly the kind of club Mother used to sketch - Rapunzel could see the torn skin, the shallow grooves where metal studs had dug in and ripped at her flesh and _oh, the poor woman…_

There was only one thing for it.

* * *

Cass drifted.

Darkness, like being underwater. Floating and falling, all at once. Heartbeat, _thump-thump-thump_. Filling her ears, filling the darkness.

Then -

Pillows and satin, cradling her body. Silk against her forehead. Almost too warm, left out in the sun too long. Wrapping around and around. Delicate, quick fingers. Confident. Practised.

And then, beyond the darkness, a voice. 

“Flower gleam and glow…”

Bright, liquid-gold voice. Heat igniting beneath silk. Spreading, _swirling_ around her head. Threads of gold. Ripples in a pond, chasing the darkness away.

And in the centre of it all, drowning in molten gold…

 _Pretty girl_ , Cass thought vaguely. _Pretty, singing girl._

“...let your power shine, make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine...”

Eyes, shimmering through the gold. Meeting hers.

“ _Who -_ ”

Fingertips pressing her lips, quieting her. Small, nervous smile.

“...heal what has been hurt, change the fates design..."

Sunshine pouring over her shoulders. Cloaking her body. Liquid, brilliant. Impossible.

"...save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine…”

Warmth melting away. Eyes heavy, drooping. Head throbbing with relief.

World fading to black, tugging her back under the ocean. 

“...what once was...mine.” 

Cassandra’s last thought, before darkness swallowed her again, was that those two redheaded lugs must have knocked her head _way_ harder than she’d thought. 

* * *

The woman was sleeping.

Quiet as a mouse, Rapunzel curled up on the bed beside her, tucking her skirt around her knees. She watched the woman’s chest rise and fall. She tried to remember she was supposed to be _scared_ of her, not fighting the urge to smile at how peaceful and content she looked, now that her wound was gone.

She could feel Pascal’s eyes watching her from the pillow, where he’d been stationed next to the woman for the last half-hour like the world’s tiniest, most attentive sentry guard, and she stroked the stubby crest of scales on top of his head absently.

After finishing the incantation, she had gently, gently sponged the dried blood from the woman’s face and hair, but she ached to do more for her. Should she give her a blanket? Take off her muddy boots? Feed her some hazelnut soup? Would that be weird? That would probably be weird.

_Definitely weird, flower. Remember, normal people from Outside won’t know your bizarre little quirks like I do! (Teasing, darling, just teasing...)_

Rapunzel winced. Mother’s voice had started lecturing her as she dragged the woman’s body across the room to her bed, and it had kept on lecturing, with increasing shrillness, the whole time she was singing the incantation. 

_Look at yourself, Rapunzel! We both know you’re not the brightest button, but this? Using your precious gift to heal a dangerous intruder? Darling, this is positively asinine!_

Rapunzel had squeezed her eyes shut and sung all the louder, trying to drown out her guilt in the familiar soaring lilt of her song. 

_I don't think she's dangerous, Mother. I checked for all the important things, I promise._ _And - and she's hurting. She’s hurting so much, and I have the power to stop it._

 _If I choose not_ _to...doesn’t that make me just as bad as the person who hurt her?_

Beside her, the woman twitched in her sleep, lost in the grip of a dream. Her elbow nudged Rapunzel’s skirt, and her fingers curled and uncurled, reaching for something unseen. Rapunzel tilted her head to one side, fascinated. What could she be dreaming about?

Hesitantly, she inched her own hand towards the woman’s, intending to calm her, but the woman’s fingers clamped down around hers (Rapunzel felt her breath hitch), gripping with all the force of a steel trap. Fierce. _Amazing._ She was so strong.

_That’s enough, flower. She won’t sleep forever. Now, lock her up safe and sound in the closet where she can’t hurt you. We both know you’re -_

“- too weak to handle myself, huh, Mother,” Rapunzel whispered, tugging a piece of hair thoughtfully back and forth through her fingers. “I know. That’s why you won’t take me to see the -”

Wait a second.

Rapunzel dropped her hair, her heart racing. She stared down at the woman on her bed.

Then she jumped up, seized the nearest bedpost, and swung herself around to gaze at the painting emblazoned across the wall above the fireplace.

A slow, wondering smile broke out across her face.

 _This_ was her chance! To show Mother she was - well, not _wrong_ exactly. Mother was never wrong. She just needed to...readjust her perspective a bit.

And it was up to Rapunzel to show her _how_. 

“Pascal? I think I have an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Next chapter, the girls get to meet and strike a deal :D
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	4. The Girl In The Tower

* * *

> _“...But hey! This is fresh-out-of-the-tower Rapunzel,  
>  right? She’s inexperienced! We’ve got the upper hand!”_
> 
> _\- Eugene to Cassandra, Rapunzel Day One, S2 Ep16_

* * *

Cass woke with a yell, her ear throbbing.

What happened? Where was she? Where was _Rider?_ And the satchel? Hadn’t she been looking for the satchel? 

_Okay, girl. Steady on. One thing at a time._

First things first - it was always the same for Cass, no matter the occasion - she needed her sword. But to reach her sword, she needed her arm, and her arm was currently bound to a chair, along with the rest of her body. Bound with golden rope, soft and shiny and impossibly warm, as though it had been left out in the sun for too long.

“What...the... _hell.”_

No time to waste on that particular oddity. Cass scanned her surroundings, twisting in her chair to try and take in the whole room - curved walls, banked ceiling, single window. A wizened old stove, piled high with plates of chocolate-speckled cookies. Candles clustered in one corner, puzzles and a dartboard in another. A slightly sweet, metallic scent - drying paint, perhaps? - that made her nose sting.

So, she’d made it into Rider’s tower hideout after all. Someone must have knocked her out. She’d probably have a melon-sized bruise on her head to compliment her Kai venom wound (though come to think of it, she couldn’t feel _either_ ). And then they’d tied her up.

Thieves were such predictable cowards, it made her sick. 

Cass set her jaw and _wrenched_ at her sword arm with all her might. 

“You don't want a fair fight, huh?” she shouted to the room in general. “Come on! Come out and face me! Or are you just as much of a coward as your ringleader?”

Silence, for a moment. Nothing but the sound of her own panting, the chair _creaking_ in protest as she struggled, and the placid chirruping of those stupid birds beyond the window. 

Then…

“Struggling - struggling is p-pointless!” called a high, tremulous voice from somewhere in the rafters, and Cassandra snapped her chin up, eyes scanning for the speaker. “And I'm not a coward. I'm - _not_ afraid of you. At all.”

Huh. Well, if her captor was as terrified as she sounded, this would be a very easy fight. Cass drew herself up. 

“Tell that to my face,” she challenged, “and I might actually believe you.”

Another long silence. Cass could almost _hear_ the hesitation in it. Something gold flickered in the darkness, like the flame of a candle. 

Then - a blur of movement, followed by the patter of bare feet against wood as her captor hopped from beam to beam, agile as a little bird, and dropped lightly to the floor. Cass raised her eyebrows. 

Not bad. Maybe this would be an interesting fight after all.

And then the shadows moved and shifted - and a girl (a _girl?)_ unfurled herself from the darkness like a flower opening towards the light. 

“Who are you? And how did you find me?”

Bare feet. Skinny ankles. Bright, shimmering pink satin. Delicate hands clutching some kind of blunt, rounded weapon (was that a frying pan?). And a soft, round face, set with eyes as wide and green as a meadow, and framed with a tumbling, shining waterfall of golden hair that folded around her body like a cloak.

 _Golden, like the sun,_ Cass thought in some vague, far-off corner of her mind. _Golden, like the rope tying me down._

The rest of her mind wasn’t capable of thinking anything at all, right now. Girls had an infuriating habit of being distracting at the most inconvenient of times.

 _Whoa_.

Cass stared. And stared. And stared.

 _...What_ was the most beautiful peasant girl in all of Corona doing in Flynn Rider’s hideout?

“Who - who are you,” said the girl again, but there was still a catch in her voice, and her fingers shifted anxiously on the handle of her weapon, a dead giveaway, “and how did you find me?”

Cass gave the girl a deadpan stare.

“You’re pretty new to this whole interrogation thing, aren’t you, sweetie?”

The girl blinked, looking like a kid thrown off-script during one of Feldspar’s infamous spring plays. 

“Oh. Well. Um.” She glanced nervously left and right, as though hoping a helpful parent would tell her what to say next - and when no one did, she looked to Cass instead, peering shyly at her over the top of her frying pan. “...Was it that obvious?”

“Take it from someone who’s trained with the Royal Guard since she was six,” Cass muttered, drumming her nails on the arms of her chair, “the interroga _tor_ should intimidate the interroga _tee_ , not the other way around. What, am I that scary?”

“You’re from Outside,” said the girl, simply.

Cass felt an odd chill run down her spine. Outside. There was...a lot contained in that little word. Like when a kid pointed at something and said _bad_. You didn’t know the full story, part of you didn’t _want_ to know, but you sensed the dark, unpleasant shape of it nonetheless. 

Was this girl entirely... _okay?_

A frying pan swung towards her, and Cass lurched backwards in her chair to avoid it colliding with her chin. The girl was giving her a scrunched-up sort of scowl from beneath a swoop of golden hair; the whole effect was about as threatening as a golden retriever puppy. 

“Who else knows my location, _Royal Guard._ ” 

And then, in a whisper - “Better?”

“Better,” Cass echoed dumbly, trying to decide whether this whole thing was stupid or adorable or some incomprehensible mixture of both. The girl was clearly no more a criminal than Friedborg. And she couldn’t have been kidnapped, because the open window was _right there._

Well, that left only one conclusion.

Cass heaved a sigh, lip curling in disgust.

“Let me guess. You’re Rider’s latest - _conquest_ , and he’s left you here to play house whilst he gallivants around the kingdom being the pilfering, self-obsessed freeloader that he is?”

 _Lucky git_ , she thought. Why was it always the sweetest girls that seemed to have the worst taste in men? As if to rub it in all the more, the girl had the audacity to blink at her with those big, innocent green eyes, tilting her head to one side like a confused robin.

“Who’s Rider?”

Cass sank back in her chair. This day just got weirder and weirder. 

“You,” she muttered, scrutinizing the girl through narrowed eyes, “are either the greatest con artist in all the Seven Kingdoms, or the most obliviously naive girl I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, I’m naive,” the girl said, nodding seriously. “Mother’s always telling me.”

Cass just looked at her. Hard.

“...Um, so, Royal Guard.” The girl began to pace around her chair, hair rustling softly along the floor behind her, and Cass craned her neck around to keep her in sight. “What do you want with my hair? To cut it? Sell it? Steal it for yourself?” 

Cass snorted. "Do I _look_ like the kind of woman who wants more hair in her life?” 

Her hair had been impossible to contain as long as she could remember, a mop of unruly curls that spiralled off in every direction and refused to be tamed, no matter how many hair brushes Dad broke in trying to do so. She’d finally lost patience a few years back and hacked it off with her sword. Dad had gone white as a sheet when he’d seen her and mumbled something about _people at court will talk_ , but she’d pointed out that people at court _already_ talked, so she might as well reap the full benefits of it. 

_This_ girl was apparently a total stranger to the concept of haircuts. Surely her hair had been enhanced with magic or alchemy to reach such a length? Ropes of hair zig-zagged across the floor and hung in loops from the ceiling like bunting at a festival. It dragged against Cass’s knees as the girl circled back in front of her and came to a halt. 

“You’re...telling the truth,” the girl murmured, and her voice was full of wonder, as though the thought of someone _not_ wanting her hair was a reality she’d hardly dared hope for.

"No kidding. Right, here's what's going to happen -" Cass hitched forward on her chair as far as her bonds would allow her. “First - you’re going to untie me. I’m chasing the most wanted man in the Seven Kingdoms, and every minute I spend as a human hair accessory is a minute wasted. Second - you’re going to help me find the loot he stashed up here not too long ago -”

“Oh, I think I found it already. A satchel with a crown, right?”

“Right. Good, you’ve saved us time. Now, as a royal guard -” Kind of. Mostly. Nearly. She _would_ be again, in just a few hours. “- it’s my job to return that satchel safely to the King and Queen, and bring Flynn Rider to justice, along with those other two ruffians he’s partnered w -”

“Wait,” breathed the girl. “Did you say ruffians? You fight ruffians?”

“Ruffians, thieves, pirates, smugglers, gangsters - they’re all the same to me. My duty is to protect innocent citizens like you from riff-raff like them.”

“What about cannibals?”

Cass blinked. “Um, sure."

“Men with pointy teeth?”

“...Yup.” Good thing Owl wasn’t here. Those piercing amber eyes would be judging her _hard_ right now, but she needed the girl to trust her. “Definitely - definitely on the list.”

“Snakes? Large bugs?”

“Listen, I have no idea where you’re going with this, and Corona isn’t exactly crawling with tarantulas, but sure, absolutely, I could take one out if - _why_ are you looking at me like that?”

The girl was staring at her with both hands pressed over her lips. Excitement seemed to be bubbling up inside her like champagne from a bottle.

“...But this is perfect!” she squealed, beaming from ear to ear and almost bouncing on the spot, the floorboards creaking in protest beneath her bare feet. “I mean - I mean, _you’re_ perfect! The perfect person to take me!”

“Take you? Take you where?”

Quick as a cat, the girl darted across the room to the far wall, swung herself up onto the mantelpiece with a loop of hair - _whoa_ , Cass thought vaguely - and pulled back the scarlet draperies that hung there.

“Take me to see... _them_ ,” the girl whispered, and her voice held all the reverence of a prayer. 

Beneath the draperies, there lay a painting. Cass had never been one for art - unless it was that collection of Invgarr portraits on the third floor that had once fueled the kind of teenage fantasies she’d merrily take to the grave - but even she could tell this painting was something special. 

A flurry of lanterns floated up the wall towards the ceiling, each tiny vessel lovingly crafted in shades of orange, yellow and blue. Some lanterns were bold and bright, whilst others had faded slightly - the girl must have been working on them for _years_ , to create the effect.

At the bottom of the painting knelt a figure with familiar golden hair that streamed down the wall like melted butter, her face upturned in wonder to the sky. 

The girl was gazing at the painting the same way Cass usually gazed at new swords. One small hand traced the nearest lantern, as though wondering what it might be like to hold a real-life one in her palm, and there was something so deeply personal about the moment that Cass almost felt she should look away.

“You mean the Lantern Festival, in honour of the Lost Princess? _How_ can you not know about -” 

“Lanterns!” the girl gasped. “I knew they weren’t stars. Yes - yes, tomorrow evening, they will light the night sky with these lanterns. You -” Here she brandished the frying pan down at Cass. “- will act as my guard and guide, take me to the festival, and return me home safely. And, um, it has to be before Mother gets back and realises I’m gone. That’s important. Then, and only then, will I return your satchel to y -”

“Oh- _ho_ , I see how it is, you little -”

“That is my deal.”

“Ha! Lucky for me, I don’t take orders from you. I’m a royal guard, not a babysitter. You want to see the lanterns? Take yourself. Some of us have more important things to do than coo over pretty lights in the sky.”

The girl winced, but Cass didn’t let her glare falter. She didn’t have time to coddle the feelings of simple peasant girls trying to play smart with her. 

“Something brought you here, Royal Guard,” the girl said thoughtfully, hopping down from the mantelpiece with all the grace of a sparrow alighting its perch. “Call it what you will - fate, destiny -”

“A petty thief with the world’s stupidest goatee.”

“So I have made the decision to trust you -”

“Ironic,” Cass muttered, thinking of shattered glass and an empty marble podium and Rider twirling the crown around his finger, and guilt twisted in her stomach.

“But trust me, when I say this -”

A _screech_ of wood against wood, and Cass felt her chair skid across the room, _thunking_ to a halt against the girl’s outstretched palms. Cass lurched forward with a gasp and hung suspended from the chair, wrists and ankles throbbing for release.

The girl bent towards her until their faces were on a level, and _oh, okay_ , _that was_...that was something she had to ignore, obviously. Ignore her stupid, traitorous stomach doing a hopeful somersault. Ignore the dainty freckles sprinkling the girl’s nose. Ignore the smell of paint and fresh cotton and warm, floral _something_ filling her lungs as she breathed in the girl’s scent. 

Emerald eyes burned into hers like coals in a fire. 

“Refuse my bargain, and you will never see your precious crown again. Take me to see the lights, and it’s yours. I promise. And when I promise something, I never, ever break that promise. _Ever_.” 

Silence stretched between them, a cord pulled tight between two immovable objects. 

“...Hm,” Cass grunted.

She was (maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit) stumped. And by a pint-sized blonde, of all things. If the other guards could see her right now...something inside her shrivelled at the thought.

_Come on girl, think. There has to be a way around this._

“I could lie to you,” she pointed out, and the girl blinked, as though she hadn’t thought of that. “I could take you a few miles, then ride back without you, turn this tower upside down, find the crown, and be back at the palace by sunset. You’d never see me again. You couldn't stop me.”

“...Thatwouldn’t be very nice,” the girl said, pouting her lip. On anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous. On her, it looked adorable. Cass ground her teeth.

“Nope,” she agreed. “But it would work.”

“Hmmm. Okay. Then I’ll take a bit of the crown with me.”

Cass blanched. “A _bit of the crown with -_ ”

“It’s the perfect solution!” 

“What, _smashing up_ the crown of the Lost Princess?” she choked, thinking of the King’s face when she presented him with the kingdom’s most hallowed relic _in pieces_ and feeling slightly faint at the thought.

“Not smash! I don’t need to smash it!” the girl said brightly, letting Cass’s chair fall back into place whilst she stared up at her, aghast. “I’ll take out one of the diamonds - they _are_ diamonds, right? The three big ones in the front, prong set? I’ve only ever seen them in my geology book! Anyway, I’ll take out a diamond, and hide it _on_ me. That way, you’ll have to stay with me all the way until the end of the trip, to get the complete crown. Clever, right?”

She beamed from ear to ear, rocking on her toes and watching eagerly for Cass’s reaction. Cass bit back a number of choice swearwords. Sun above, the girl had _no idea_ how good she was. Somehow, she'd managed to back her ( _her!_ ) into a corner. And Cass could see only one escape route.

Returning to the palace, empty-handed and disgraced, was not an option. Dad would pack her off to the convent of her nightmares and her failure would eat at her like slow-acting poison for the rest of her days. Without that that crown ( _and_ Rider) in her possession, she simply couldn't go back. 

The alternative...came with her little quirks, to be sure, like the frying pan and the absurdly long hair, but she seemed harmless enough. Chances were she’d probably need protecting from _herself_ , more than anything else - a bit like a small child needed to be told not to poke a bumblebee or eat dodgy mushrooms. The girl had clearly been sheltered to a dangerous degree, that was why she needed Cass.

Besides, she could face down six men with nothing more than her dagger on a good day. Babysitting a rebellious teenager for forty-eight hours would be child’s play, right?

She had waited in the wings for nearly twenty years. She could sure as hell wait a bit longer.

Cass drew herself up in her seat with as much pride as she could muster whilst still being strapped to the back of it by seventy feet of hair. Raised her chin. Met the girl’s eyes.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	5. Out The Window

* * *

> _“Life's been so unsatisfying  
>  _ _Look, suddenly, now I'm flying  
>  _ _Freewheeling from cloud to cloud to cloud  
>  _ _Wings spread and the sky below me  
>  _ _There's no one to stop or slow me  
>  _ _Pure freedom and everything's allowed”_
> 
> _\- Rapunzel, Freebird, S2 Ep04_

* * *

The girl’s face lit up like the glow of a thousand lanterns. 

“ _Really?_ ” she squeaked, hands bounding up to her cheeks in little fists of excitement. Cass sighed impatiently, the sound hissing out through her teeth. 

"Really, really. Now get me out of _this -_ ” She kicked at a chair leg, making it rattle. “- before I change my mind."

“Right. Yes. Sorry!” The girl beamed at her shoulder. “Pascal, help me untie her?”

Wait - no, she beamed at the _lizard_ on her shoulder, a tiny pop of mint green against the soft pink of her sleeve, and okay, at this point, Cass was just going to roll with it, because her brain was starting to hurt from the amount of pent-up questions it was trying to sift through. 

The lizard snapped a salute with one tiny claw, and leapt nimbly from her shoulder onto Cass’s wrist, scooping up a chunk of hair in its mouth. Huh. Smart little thing. Meanwhile, the girl dropped to her knees and began to unwind hair from Cass’s ankles. 

“Guess I’m lucky this Flynn Rider person decided to hide his crown up here after all, huh? Otherwise, we'd never have met! And I just _knew_ you were the perfect person to take me…”

“Did you realise that after you knocked me out cold, or only after you tied me up in your own hair?” Cass drawled.

“No, no, it was when you told me you were chasing ruffians,” the girl said, and Cass realised a second too late that her sarcasm hadn’t so much flown over the girl’s head as soared a mile-high above it. “I knew I could trust you, because - well - I think if Mother had to choose _anyone_ to look after me on this trip, it would be someone like you.” 

“A total stranger who snuck in through her daughter’s bedroom window?”

The girl let out a silvery giggle. “Someone who can protect me just like Mother does, of course! And who better to do that than a real royal guard like you?”

“...Huh,” Cass muttered. The lie had passed her lips as easily as every insult she’d ever shot at Rider, but hearing it spoken back by the girl in such a matter-of-fact tone - well. That made it worse, somehow. The unquestioning _trust_ in her voice was like nothing anyone in Cass’s life ever showed her. “Who indeed.”

Whatever. She had to do anything necessary to get that satchel.

The girl prattled on about nothing in particular. Her hands danced over Cass’s thighs and up her waist, sliding beneath the coils of hair to pull them loose, whilst Cass stared hard at the ceiling and tried to think of something spectacularly dull and unrelated to a pretty girl putting her hands all over her. Needlework. Linens. Polishing the silver. 

...Sun above, her hands were _soft_ -

“- doubt Mother could have found me a more suitable friend if she'd chosen you for me herself! Oh look, you even have a dagger just like hers -”

“Enough gushing,” Cass snapped, seizing the girl’s curious hands, removing them firmly from her dagger, and holding them up high in front of her - it was like trying to control an inquisitive toddler. "I am not your _friend,_ I am an unfortunate stranger who will put up with you for the next twenty-four hours to get that crown back and put a noose around Rider’s neck. So do me a favour, and quit trying to sugarcoat this thing. Okay?”

“...Okay.” The girl’s voice was very small, all of a sudden. “Um. Not - not my friend. Got it.”

Cass ignored her, too busy rubbing vigorously at her arms to get the blood flowing again. Right. Now for the messy part. Time to deal with her wounds. She ran her hands back through her curls, her fingers gliding over…

Smooth skin. Dry hair. Clean scalp. 

“...What the hell,” she mumbled, to the world in general. No way. _No_ _way_.

That frying pan had hit her square on. And the Kai venom had scalded like hot oil, she’d bled all over the grass. She’d been infected. She’d been _dying_.

 _..._ Hadn’t she? 

Memory blurred. Cass shook her head. Her sword dripping green, Rider screaming, the world turning inside out as she clung to consciousness. Weird dreams. Gold. Singing. Had she imagined the singing? She could have _sworn_ there was singing.

“...Oh, um, don’t worry, I took care of your wounds!” the girl cut in, in a slightly high voice. Her fixed smile was blinding. “Your bruise went down and the other one was more of a flesh wound, heh, you know, it _looked_ really bad, but I put some salve on it, and actually, um, it healed super fast, isn’t that great? That’s great, right?”

She spoke so fast, the words practically blurred together. Cass gave her a flat look. 

"You going to tell me what really happened?"

The girl flushed a distracting shade of pink.

“It was a... _really_ good salve," she mumbled.

“Uh-huh.”

Some kind of magic, perhaps? Or alchemy? Cass waited. The girl stared at her feet as though they were the most interesting thing she’d ever seen in her life. For the briefest instant, her eyes darted to the corner of the room, where a large bed had been almost entirely buried under pottery equipment, stacks of paper mache heads, and something that looked inexplicably like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Cass pursed her lips.

Later, then. If the girl thought for one second that Cass was going to let this go, she was sorely mistaken.

"We're wasting time." She kicked her chair back. "Let's get moving -"

“- Wait!” A hand entered her field of vision, stopping her in her tracks. “I still don’t know your name.”

Cass ignored the hand, pretending to adjust her belt. “Cassandra.”

“And I’m Rapunzel.” She could hear the girl’s smile in her voice. “It’s _so_ nice to meet you, Cassandra!” 

And then the hand disappeared, and a frying pan replaced it, shoving into Cass’s face like the point of a sword and nearly sending her falling straight back into the chair again. 

“But, uh, you try anything, I _will_ pan you.”

Cass raised a brow.

A second later, and Rapunzel was yelping in surprise, one arm twisted behind her back, the other held high out of reach. The frying pan _clanged_ away into a corner. Cass gripped the girl tight against her chest, a fine mist of golden hair obscuring her vision. Her lips twitched against a smirk. 

“You were saying?”

“Wow! _Wow!_ That was - _so cool!_ ” Rapunzel craned her head around eagerly, gazing up at Cass with a rapt, gooey-eyed sort of look that sent heat rushing up her neck. Too close. Much too close. She was suddenly very aware of the existence of her hands, and where she'd placed them. The girl felt impossibly warm against her, as though she'd been lying in the sun. " _How_ did you do that? Did you learn it in the Guard? Can you teach me?” 

Cass shook herself. Strange. The girl wasn't even bothering to struggle - on the contrary, she seemed delighted by the whole thing, resting her head back on Cass's shoulder like it was a _game_. For all her mother’s apparent efforts to keep her daughter safe and protected, the girl was apparently clueless when it came to self-defense. It explained the frying pan nonsense, at least. 

It didn’t explain much else. 

“That was a warning.” Cass let her go. “You keep your end of the deal, I'll keep mine. I won’t _try anything_ if you don’t.”

She kicked at the fallen pan with her boot, sending it flipping up between them. Rapunzel squeaked - flailed - caught it - _dropped_ it - caught it again, and cradled it to her chest.

“Yes, sir! Uh, I mean, Cassandra.” Rapunzel grinned, resting her chin on the top of her pan and gazing at Cass like she was a rare painting or impressive sculpture. “Has anyone ever told you you’re...kind of scary?”

"You'd be surprised," Cass muttered, thinking of crossbows and perfect white teeth and _I’ll give you this much, lady: you’re scary as hell and you don’t give up easy._ The back of her neck prickled.

Strange, how the universe could link together the two most unlikely people through the smallest of things. The girl in the tower and the thief with the crown. Cass had the oddest feeling about it, as though the coincidence held a significance she couldn’t articulate.

“...Pack your things,” she muttered, turning for the window and ignoring the girl’s questioning look. “Five minutes. I’ll wait for you below.”

* * *

The world was wide, and Rapunzel had never felt so small. 

The wall of the tower dropped away before her like the sheer face of a cliff. Her hair rippled back and forth beneath her in a ribbon of gold, the ends caressing the grass with feathery fingertips. The only part of her that had ever touched the Outside World. 

Now, for the first time, the rest of her could join it. 

Her stomach turned over.

_Silly flower, what do you think you’re doing? Come back inside, there’s a good girl..._

_No, no, no_ , she thought frantically. She was so close! She couldn’t turn back now! Not after everything she’d done, just to get this far! The cool, heavy weight of the diamond she’d (carefully, with one of Mother’s best knives) pried from the crown now nestled in the hollow between her breasts. She’d knotted a length of pink string around it, tucking the string away under the neckline of her dress so Cassandra wouldn’t see, but the jewel would still be _attached_ to her in some way.

A spring breeze tugged at her skirt, misted with spray from the great waterfall. Nature itself, trying to reach inside the window frame and scoop her out -

_\- Like a baby bird torn from its nest, flower! Away from its safe haven, away from its Mother! Is that really what you want, pet? To be ripped away from me forever?_

Her knuckles clenched white around her hair. Her toes crept over the rim of the windowsill. Pascal chirruped hesitantly in her ear and nudged her cheek with the top of his cool, scaly head. 

_Leave me then, dear. Let me die alone and unloved, mourning the loss of my beloved daughter, the one light of my life, whilst she gallivants off into the wilderness and gets herself drowned in lava or devoured by a cannibal or killed by the plague -_

“- Hey. _Hey._ Earth to Rapunzel. Can we get a move on?”

The breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding gasped from her lungs. 

Far, far away beneath her toes, Cassandra was a tiny smudge of black-red-brown against the ground, the sun glinting off her sword like a needle - an odd, unnatural blot on the landscape Rapunzel could otherwise have painted in her sleep. She was scowling so hard that Rapunzel could make it out even from this distance. 

Rapunzel laughed. It sounded faintly hysterical even to her own ears. “Yup! Just - just be a minute!”

“Take your time,” the woman deadpanned. “It’s not like either of us have anywhere to be besides, you know, fulfilling a lifelong dream and catching the most wanted man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

It was, Rapunzel thought wryly, rather like being with an impatient horse who wanted to gallop off before you’d even had a chance to put the saddle on.

“Wait.” Something in Cassandra’s voice changed. “You - _have_ been outside before, right?”

“...Does the windowsill count?”

The silence that followed was probably the longest she’d heard the woman go without sniping back at her.

“Well. That explains a lot.”

There was a soft, hesitant _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of boots traipsing over the scattered bits of brick at the foot of her tower as the woman came to stand directly beneath her. 

“Hey, listen. You’ll - you’ll be fine. The longer you put it off, the harder it’ll be.”

Her voice was different again. Cautious, and surprisingly gentle. Less like a soldier barking orders, and more like the voice Rapunzel used when she wanted to encourage timid swallows to feed out of her hand at the window when Mother wasn’t looking.

“Come on. Slide down, and I’ll catch you.” 

Pause.

“And, um, the lizard too.”

Pascal squeaked in appreciation. He tucked himself into the crook of her shoulder and secured a tiny belt of hair firmly around his waist, gazing up at her with wide, expectant eyes. Rapunzel gave him a smile that trembled on her lips.

_Flower, don’t you dare._

And closed her eyes. 

_Flower, NO!_

The sky somersaulted above her, a storm-tossed ocean turned upside down. The ground rushed towards her. Mad. Weightless. Flying. Her own laughter drowning out Mother’s screams. 

" _Gotcha_.”

Cassandra’s breath gasped against her cheek. She landed spreadeagled in the woman’s waiting arms, the jolt knocking the breath out of her and shaking through her whole body. Cassandra grunted and made as if to put her down -

“- Not yet, not yet!” Rapunzel blurted, kicking her feet up and doing a frantic sort of scramble to stay in Cassandra’s arms, stay _safe_ , clutching at her neck and shoulders, bunching up fabric in her fists. 

Below, the grass loomed up at her. It seemed to fill her whole vision.

_Enough with the lights, Rapunzel! You are NOT leaving this tower! EVER!_

“Hey. It’s just grass, you know. It’s not going to hurt you.” She felt, rather than heard, Cassandra’s words dust softly against her cheek. Her voice was almost inaudible over the pounding in her ears and the shriek of Mother’s voice. “Very safe stuff, grass. In my experience.”

“Oh,” Rapunzel whispered, numbly, feeling some of the tension ease from her shoulders. It was the closest thing to _kind_ she’d heard from the woman so far.

And somehow, it helped to quieten down Mother, just a bit. 

Strange. There weren’t many things in the world that could do that.

_Ruffians, thugs, poison ivy, quicksand, cannibals, puppets, guys on stilts, snakes, wooden shoes, the plague, large bugs, riptides, men with pointy teeth, rhinos, muggers, molten lava -_

“- Cassandra?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s. Um. No lava around here, right?”

When Cassandra answered, she could hear the grin in her voice. 

“Nope. You’re good. Lava-free.”

Rapunzel closed her eyes.

And for the first time in her life, she listened to a voice that wasn’t Mother’s.

One toe. Two toes. A cool, scratchy carpet tickled the undersides of her feet. Squashy earth, beneath that. Vaguely, she was aware of Cassandra reaching up to gently, firmly _prise_ her fingers from their vice-like grip around her neck, and send Rapunzel tottering forward in a half-daze.

 _It’s now_ , she thought, something warm and hopeful unfurling in her chest like the petals of a flower. _Right now._

Her knees hit the grass.

_Now, my life begins._

And when she started to laugh, the sound echoed and soared about the clearing, and mingled with the song of the birds flying free in the sky above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	6. Disobedient Daughters

* * *

> _“I figured...Rapunzel would be all mopey,  
>  and...ehh...I don’t really do mope.” _
> 
> _\- Cassandra, Cassandra v Eugene, S2 Ep05_

* * *

“What’s that?”

“Pinecone.”

“What’s _that?_ ”

“Molehill.”

“Ooo, what’s that? Hey, little fella -”

Cass grasped Rapunzel’s delicate shoulders in both her hands and steered her firmly in the opposite direction of the raccoon she’d been reaching out to stroke.

“That’s Old Corona’s most infamous pest, and it may look fluffy, but it’s carrying more diseases than you can name. _What_ did we say about touching animals without asking me first?”

“Sorry!” Rapunzel tugged guiltily at a strand of hair, peering at Cass from beneath her bangs and wincing as she glared back. “I’m trying, I promise. It’s just there’s so much to - _oh my gosh_ look at that _-_ ”

\- And she was off again. Great. Just great. Cassandra slumped sideways against the nearest tree trunk, scraped her sweaty curls back off her forehead, and let her head fall against the bark with a _thunk_.

Rapunzel hadn’t stopped, all day. The girl was a machine. Untameable. Irrepressible. The midday heat seemed to have no effect on Rapunzel, nor the fact that they’d been climbing steadily uphill for the past few hours to get back to the top of the cliff and pick up Fidella. Cass was ready to rip off her boots and dunk her face in a water barrel, but Rapunzel had been catapulting through the woods like a bird set loose from its cage - vaulting up trees, rolling down hills, swinging around on her hair, scooping up handfuls of flowers and rocks and leaves and _oo_ -ing and _ah_ -ing over them like they were precious jewels. 

“Don’t touch that,” Cass would rattle off, approximately once every three minutes, in a voice that grew steadily more defeated at the hours went by. “Or that. Or th - _Rapunzel!_ ”

Obedient to a fault, the girl would always pause, and peep round at Cass, lower lip jutting out in disappointment and looking remarkably like a kid who’d just been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Or in her case, an ants’ nest (“Pascal, look, _look_ , I found you lunch!”).

Or a rotting tree log (“Whoa, it’s so moist and crumbly! Cassandra, come feel!”).

Or sticky gloops of tree-sap that took some military-grade scrubbing on Cass’s part to clean off (“Wow, I didn’t realise it would be... _that_ sticky.”).

Cass was almost starting to miss the _old_ Rapunzel - the one who’d trembled in her very arms at the notion of walking on grass. Now, she was acting like five-year-old charging around a sandpit for the first time, bare feet and all. She even had the mood swings of one. One second she’d be dancing along the path with squeals of delight (“I am never going _ba-a-ack!_ ”), the next she’d be trudging along ten feet behind Cass whilst monologuing softly to herself about what a (“- _despicable_ -”) human being she was.

Cass had quickly lost patience with that whole routine. 

“You want to mope?” she’d snapped, after Rapunzel had spent a solid ten-minutes lying face-down on the hillside mumbling her soliloquy into a patch of daisies. “Mope on the road.” 

She entertained the thought of just scooping Rapunzel up bridal-style and _carrying_ her back to Fidella - but that meant throwing a little thing called personal space out the window, and Cass was a big fan of personal space.

And so Rapunzel had settled for slumping against Cass’s shoulder instead - because the girl seemed to be as much a stranger to personal space as she was to everything else on the planet - mumbling her woes into her sleeve as they shuffled along. Her hair fanned out behind them both, a strange, otherworldly kind of cloak that never seemed to get sticks or leaves or anything else stuck in it, but instead remained smooth and fine as silk, growing curiously hot beneath the sun and scalding Cass’s shoulder.

As if on cue, Rapunzel’s voice drifted to her through the shimmering heat of the forest. Muffled whimpers, punctuated with loud sniffs. 

Oh _brother_ , was she crying again?

Cass slumped to her knees against the tree, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes.

 _I’m chained to the most emotional girl in Corona_.

They couldn't go on like this. Cass mopped her brow with her sleeve, thinking it over. Should she - _talk_ to the girl? Every bone in her body recoiled at the thought. Talking _feelings._ With a girl. This was so not her area of expertise.

...Still. It was better than sitting around. At least if she found out what Rapunzel was crying _about_ , she'd be one step closer to helping her. Perhaps they could come up with a plan to fight back against whatever it was that was causing her so much grief. 

Cass might not be one for feelings - but she did fighting back like a champ.

* * *

_Do you understand what you’ve done to me, flower? When I found your bed empty, I thought, “They’ve stolen my precious girl away, and I’ll never see her again.” I wept for you all night, dear._

Rapunzel scrunched up her knees on the cool grass, wrapped her arms around her legs - and sobbed. The gnarled roots of an oak tree grated against her spine. Her sleeves were damp against her cheeks. It didn’t matter - nothing _real_ mattered, when Mother got like this. Reality broke apart like a little boat drowning in the ocean of her voice.

_Come home to me now, pet. I promise, I won’t be too angry. I might even let you watch the stars tomorrow, safe and sound from your tower. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, dear? Safe and sound with -_

Someone cleared their throat. Gruff, awkward. Quiet. Almost as though they were hoping she wouldn’t hear them. 

But it was enough - Mother’s voice had been interrupted, a bit of reality poking its way into the gap between one word and the next, and Rapunzel blinked through a watery film of tears. A scrap of cotton had been thrust in front of her, caked in grease towards the middle, clean at the edges.

She looked up.

The woman, Cassandra, was standing beside the oak tree - shoulders shrugged up, one hand stuffed into her tunic pocket, the other stuck out in front of her like the arm of a particularly severe statue, the handkerchief fluttering softly in the breeze.

Rapunzel stared at it. Then up at the woman. Then back again.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Thank y-you. That’s k-kind.”

She took the handkerchief, and Cassandra’s hand snapped back to her side as though embarrassed by its own behaviour, stuffing itself into her other pocket. “Mind the stains. Might have polished armour with it, once or twice.”

Rapunzel hiccoughed, giving her a watery smile. The woman didn’t smile back, just looked at her. 

Oh well. She didn’t seem to like smiling much in general, did she? 

Maybe that was part of being a royal guard. Rapunzel sniffed thoughtfully and dabbed at her eyes with the square of cotton. You probably had to be gruff and serious and intimidating to qualify for the job, and Cassandra totally had those things down. 

Rapunzel sighed. If only _she_ could command her emotions like that. 

“Okay, out with it.”

“Huh?”

“I said, out with it. What’s going on with you?” 

Cassandra wasn’t looking at her. She’d tugged the dagger from her belt and sat on one of the tree roots beside Rapunzel’s back, tucking one leg up against her chest and leaving the other foot on the ground. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out a flat, close-grained stone and began to _screech_ it softly against the blade.

 _Probably basalt_ , Rapunzel thought, sitting up on her knees to watch Cassandra work. She’d left her geology book back in the tower, along with everything else. A pang of homesickness washed over her at the thought. Absently, she raised a hand to the neckline of her dress, feeling the smooth outline of the diamond pendant hidden beneath. Her insurance. Still there. Still safe.

“Talk to me,” Cassandra muttered, before Mother’s voice could cut in again. “I’m getting overprotective mother, forbidden roadtrip, and a whole load of indecision and self-loathing thrown in for good measure. But I need more to work with. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what's going on.”

Warmth blossomed in Rapunzel’s chest, like swallowing down a mouthful of Mother’s hazelnut soup fresh off the stove. “You want to help me?”

“Well, it doesn't look like we're going to make a lot of progress until I do, does it?” Cassandra snapped, and Rapunzel winced backwards. The warmth evaporated, replaced by something cold and sad and _resigned_ that sank deep into the pit of her stomach.

_There you go again, dear! That’s my silly flower, putting her foot in it, just like always -_

“- Besides,” Cassandra muttered, leaning down from her perch and scooping up the handkerchief (now sopping wet and thoroughly ruined) from Rapunzel’s lap, “it’s part of my - my duty, I guess. As a royal guard. To help any citizen in distress. It’s in _A Compendium of Corona Law And Procedure_.”

Cassandra jabbed a finger matter-of-factly in her direction. “Citizen.” Then at herself. “Guard.” Then at the handkerchief, now dripping forlornly from where she’d tied it on her belt. “Distress.” 

Rapunzel felt a laugh bubble up in her chest. The woman was so blunt about everything. It was kind of intimidating, but also...easy, somehow. There were no guessing games with Cassandra. Conversation was simple. You just said what you wanted to say. No confusing teasing. No double meanings that left her feeling like she’d had the carpet pulled from under her. No hidden instructions behind her words that Rapunzel was always too slow to catch.

“Do you always say _exactly_ what you mean?” she murmured, gazing up at the woman in awe. 

Cassandra shrugged, holding her dagger up to the light and squinting at it. “Pretty much.”

“Wow,” Rapunzel breathed, and she meant it. “I could never - I mean, with Mother. I could never.”

She could feel the woman watching her, over the top of her dagger, with those eagle-eyes of hers. Steady. Expectant. 

Rapunzel drew in a breath.

“I spent...eighteen years, summoning up the courage to tell Mother I wanted to see the floating lights more than anything in the whole world.” She let out a half-sigh, half-laugh. “Isn't that silly? I mean, she’s my Mother and I love her more than anything. She kept - _keeps_ \- me in my tower to protect me. But I was terrified to ask her. Terrified to admit...I wanted something more than everything she’s given me, when she’s given me so much. It felt ungrateful.”

Silence for a moment, broken only by the wet grind of stone-against-metal. But she could _feel_ , rather than see, that Cassandra was listening.

It was nice. 

“Mother only wants what’s best for me. But I - I wanted something more. And now I’ve disobeyed her, to try and get it. Does that make me a bad person?”

Rapunzel paused. The forest had gone very quiet, all of a sudden. And then she realised why - Cassandra had stopped sharpening her dagger. The woman was staring at her with an inscrutable expression.

“Parents always think they know best, huh?”

Rapunzel smiled sheepishly. “Well. Um. Don’t they?”

Cassandra rounded on her. Her knuckles clenched around her weapon, like she was afraid someone might try to snatch it away from her. 

“No,” she said fiercely, “they know what’ll keep you safe, fed and clothed. They’re parents, that’s their job. But they don’t know - they _can’t_ know - what’ll get you out of bed in the morning and make your life feel worth living. The only person who can know that is yourself.”

“I’d never really thought of it like that.”

“Well, you should. Don’t let yourself feel guilty for wanting something more from life, even if it means disobeying your - your mother - to try and get it.” 

She made a short, derisive sound, slamming the edge of her stone against the dagger. Rapunzel winced.

“People’ll tell you anything to get you to shut up and wait, wait, _wait_ until your life’s flown by and it’s too late to try anyway. Trust me, you did the right thing. You could have sat around lamenting in that tower, but you didn’t. You chose to get up. Leave. Fight.”

 _Oh dear,_ Rapunzel thought, blinking up at the woman in fascination. _I think I touched a nerve._

“You - you have to fly the nest, sooner or later,” Cassandra was saying, calmer now, sliding her dagger back into her belt and standing up. “And sometimes your parents won’t like how you choose to do that. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you _wrong_ for -” She bit her lip.“- for disobeying them.”

It almost sounded like she wanted to add _I hope_ , Rapunzel thought, but she didn’t dare say anything. Cassandra was bearing down on her, hands on her hips like an army general sizing up a new cadet. 

“Clear?”

“Clear,” Rapunzel smiled, and just barely resisted snapping a salute in response. “Wow. Heh. I feel like - like we’ve learned more about each other in the past two minutes than we did the whole time you were in my tower!”

“Guess forced imprisonment by way of seventy feet of hair just doesn’t bring people together like it used to,” Cass muttered, and Rapunzel giggled. “Okay. Up you get. We’re close now, Fidella’s tied to a bimberry bush over the crest of that hill.”

Rapunzel jumped to her feet, a little thrill of excitement leaping in her stomach. 

“I’m excited to meet her!” she said, falling into step alongside Cassandra as she set off up the path again. “I’ve never even _seen_ a horse before…” 

“What, your mother never hoisted one up to the tower window for you to pet?”

“Very funny, Cassandra,” Rapunzel grinned, nudging against her with an elbow and receiving a much sharper nudge in return that sent her staggering sideways, giggling again. “So what colour is she? Oh, and how long have you had her? I guess you must ride horses pretty much every day, being a royal guard and all that. Wow. I wonder what Pascal will think of h -” 

Cassandra’s outstretched arm collided with her chest, bringing them both to a dead halt.

Rapunzel blinked, glancing about them both. They'd stopped at the edge of a glade. Bimberry bushes carpeted the forest floor in bursts of leafy green and rich purple. They ranged from little fledgling shrubs to vast, rambling bushes as tall as Cassandra herself, climbing towards the noonday sun that fell in shimmering pools around them.

But there was no horse in sight - well, unless Mother’s description of horses had been _totally_ off, but Mother would never lie to her, and besides, it had to at least be big enough to carry them both to the place Cassandra called _Corona_ , so that meant...

Something was wrong.

“Cassandra?” she murmured, glancing up at the woman. “What is it? Why have we stopped?”

The colour had drained from Cassandra’s face, leaving it even whiter than before. Her nostrils flared.

“They took her.” 

“... _What?_ ” Rapunzel gasped, swinging her head back and forth between Cassandra and the bimberry bushes clustered around them. “Who? Who took her? How do you know?” 

Cassandra drifted forward, boots crushing berries in her wake. Her arm remained outstretched in front of Rapunzel. There was something instinctual in the gesture, Rapunzel thought with a pang of sudden affection for the woman, as though Cassandra was subconsciously trying to shield her from the awfulness of what had happened. 

“Rider and the Stabbingtons,” Cassandra said, simply, reaching out a hand towards a particularly large, rambling bimberry bush. A piece of torn teal-blue swayed from one of the branches. She locked her fist around it. _Ripped_ it free. Berries scattered the ground. “They took Fidella.” 

“... _Oh_ ,” Rapunzel whispered, shoulders slumping. Pascal let out a low, alarmed _squeak_ and Rapunzel reached for him instinctively, letting him wrap his little twist of a tail around her finger. The thought of anyone trying to steal _Pascal_ away from her was enough to make tears burn in her eyes. “Oh Cassandra, I’m so _sorry_ -”

And without even consciously making the choice to do so, she threw her arms around the woman, burying her face in her shoulder and squeezing her in the kind of bone-crushing hug that Mother always gave her when she was upset.

Beneath her, Cassandra went stiff as a board.

“- Hey, hey, whoa!” she spluttered, head snapping up and hitting a low-hanging branch with a _thud,_ showering them in berries. “You - _ow!_ What the -”

“I just can’t believe they would do that, even if they are ruffians,” Rapunzel mumbled into her shoulder. Cassandra smelled faintly of metal and sweat and something else, something nice, that she couldn’t identify. Her curls tickled Rapunzel’s cheek. “It’s so awful. But we’ll find her, and we’ll rescue her, I know we will!”

“Rapunzel.”

“Mm?”

“Ever heard of a little thing called _personal space_.”

Rapunzel pulled back to blink at the woman, arms still looped around her. Some of the colour had returned to Cassandra’s cheeks again. That was good. But she was also craning her neck away from Rapunzel as though she were an over-affectionate puppy trying to lick her, staring down at her with an oddly tight, strained expression.

“You - you don’t want a hug?” Her arms shifted uncertainty around Cassandra’s neck. _Something_ hung between them, all of a sudden. Something awkward. Oh no. Had she made things awkward? “I thought everyone liked hugs. Because you’re upset. And when you’re upset, you need -”

“I don’t need anything, Rapunzel. I’m fine.” 

“But you’re not,” Rapunzel protested, feeling a little frown crease between her brows. “I can see you're not. He took your _horse_ -”

“Drop it, Rapunzel.” 

“But -”

“I _said_ ” - she seized Rapunzel’s shoulders, half-lifting her away from her so Rapunzel’s toes skimmed the grass for a moment - “drop it.”

Why was Cassandra _pretending?_

The woman shouldered past her, stomping through the lake of bimberry bushes with her head down so Rapunzel couldn’t read her expression. Rapunzel trailed along behind her, biting her lip and feeling stung. Fallen berries squelched unpleasantly beneath her bare feet.

 _You were so busy teaching me about the dangers of the Outside World, Mother_ , _you forgot to teach me how to understand the people._

Oh well. She’d just have to teach herself, then. Lesson number one - no hugging people without asking first. Even people who deserved a hug, who _needed_ a hug...but didn’t want one. Best to just stick to talking instead. 

“...Cassandra?”

“Mm.”

“Where - where do you think they’ve taken her?”

“Not far. Rider was injured.”

“Oh.” Rapunzel shuddered. When _she_ hurt herself, she could simply sing the pain away. People in the Outside World weren’t so lucky. “Maybe they went to the doctor?”

Cassandra snorted. “The doctor won’t be able to help, Rapunzel. The only thing that can save him now is -”

She jerked to a halt. Rapunzel walked straight into her with an _oof_. Cassandra was staring into space, her lips forming words but making no sound, as though replaying a memory to make sure she’d recalled it correctly.

“...I know where they’re headed,” she whispered, blinking as though she’d surprised herself with the answer. 

“You _do?_ ” Rapunzel beamed and clapped her hands together. “That’s amazing! Where? Where are we going?”

Cassandra eyed her shrewdly.

“Ever heard of a little place called The Snuggly Duckling?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	7. Into The Duckling

* * *

> _“You see, after your untimely disappearance, your  
>  father locked up every criminal in the kingdom,  
>  including a simple petty thief - my father. I saw  
>  him thrown into a cage and hauled off like  
>  some animal, never to be seen again...” _
> 
> _\- Lady Caine to Rapunzel, Tangled: Before Ever After_

* * *

At the end of the day, criminals were like rats. 

The King knew it. Father knew it. Cass knew it. 

Skulking in their tunnels. Inhabiting the dank, wretched holes of society. Hiding where no one dared tread without a knife in one hand and a bottle of disinfectant in the other. In a kingdom as iron-fisted as Corona, safety in numbers - and a nest to share - was the key to survival.

“There she is,” Cass muttered darkly, pulling aside a low-hanging branch for Rapunzel to peer through. “The most infamous criminal haunt in all of Corona.”

They were tucked behind an apple tree on the edge of the clearing. The scent of fresh apples was a welcome antidote to the reek of unwashed bodies, stale beer and burned stew wafting from the squat pub at the center of the clearing. Cass could almost _feel_ the smell oozing itself into her pores. 

Behind her, Rapunzel bounced up on her toes, settling her chin into the small, comfortable nook between Cass’s neck and shoulder - and wrinkled her nose.

“Oh. Wow. That’s an...an…” She scrunched up her face in determination, clearly bent on finding something positive to say, on pain of death “...original smell, isn’t it?”

Cass smirked. She was cute. It was downright stupid how cute she was. “That’s one way to put it. Come on - let’s find Fidella.” 

* * *

Sure enough, a few moments later, Rapunzel was standing by the hitching post at the back of the foul-smelling pub, beaming from ear to ear as she watched Cassandra throw her arms around a tall, stately creature with a gleaming coat the colour of molten caramel, burying her face in its mane like a small child nestling in its mother’s embrace. 

"Brave girl, good girl, I'm here, I've got you," she crooned, over and over. The horse whinnied softly and rubbed the side of its great head against Cassandra’s curls. "You're safe now, I promise."

Rapunzel hugged her arms around herself, an odd _pang_ of something unidentifiable running through her. Something about the way Cassandra's whole face softened when she gazed up at her horse...it reminded her of how the woman had looked as she slept on her pillow back in the tower, peaceful, unguarded, _unb_ _urdened_. Her fingers itched for a paintbrush, to capture the moment. If only, if _only_ she'd thought to bring her paints!

And what a sight Fidella was, with her strange, long, curved head and hooves like polished stones and shimmering mane the colour of milk chocolate. She could finally do justice to a creature she’d wanted to add to her tower walls for _years_ …

“Did they hurt you, girl?” Cassandra was murmuring, stroking the horse’s velveteen nose with the tips of her fingers. “Bet Rider drove you too fast, didn’t he? Selfish git. Let’s get you a drink and fix up your mane. Rapunzel, come help.”

Whilst Fidella drank, Cassandra began to braid her glossy mane into elegant knots down the creature's neck, guiding Rapunzel's fingers to help her. Soon they were moving in tandem, Cassandra whispering instructions, Rapunzel following along intently. 

They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes. The water pump _drip-drip-dripped_ onto the stone beside them with a sound like tinkling coins. Cassandra had stopped smiling, now. She was still braiding, but - in a brisk, distracted sort of way. Her eyes kept drifting to the boarded-up windows of the back of the pub, and each time, a shadow seemed to pass over her face.

Rapunzel hesitated, watching her. “So...so now we’ve rescued Fidella. Now we’ll go to Corona, right? To see the lanterns?”

Cassandra didn’t answer. She seemed to be weighing something up in her mind, wrestling against it. A muffled roar of distinctly male laughter from inside the pub made the windows rattle. Cassandra’s long, elegant fingers curled into fists around Fidella’s mane. Rapunzel swallowed.

_I think I know where this is going._

Cassandra’s eyes locked with hers. All the softness from before was gone. Now, there was something cold and simmering in their depths.

“There's something I have to do first.”

* * *

Stepping into the Snuggly Duckling was like stepping into the belly of a tree.

The thick trunk of an oak had cleaved the pub in two from floor to ceiling. Roots burst from the rotting floorboards, gnarling their way around bar-stool legs and creeping up barrels of beer caked with the filth of decades. The odd shriveled branch had pushed through the ceiling.

And the patrons - well, the patrons looked every bit as foul as they smelled. They were the kind of thugs Cass would rather be looking at from behind nice strong metal bars in the palace dungeons. Great hulking mountains of muscle, their heads balanced on top like melons, clothes torn and moldering in unfortunate places. Crude metal-studded clubs and helmets with curved horns occupied the chairs beside them.

An axe whistled through the air above them, trailing a delicate sprinkle of blood in its wake. It _thunked_ into a nearby wall, impaling the nose of a scowling man with a bushy mustache who had been crudely sketched in chalk (and already had several, smaller axes sticking out of his barrel chest), amid roars of glee from the pub. 

Wait. She knew that mustache. That was a sketch of _Dad_.

Hot fury burned in her chest. Beneath the hooded cloak she’d taken from Fidella’s saddlebags, Cass dug her nails into her palm and fought the urge to send the axe flying back across the pub to impale its owner. This was bad. Very, very bad. If anyone found out the Captain’s very own daughter was wandering around The Snuggly Duckling, they were dead meat.

Head down, she picked her way gingerly across the floor, trying not to gag from the stench, her boots sticking - or occasionally _splashing, eugh_ \- with every step. Rapunzel clutched her arm with one hand and held her skirt with the other, delicately picking her way forward on tiptoe. 

“Remember what we discussed?” Cass muttered. 

Rapunzel nodded vigorously. Beneath her own hood, her face was brittle with fear, but she forced a tiny, awkward smile all the same. Cass felt a pang of something horribly close to - well, she refused to call it _guilt_ , because she had nothing to be guilty _about_ , obviously. What choice did she have? 

Rider was _here_. Within these very walls, sitting at one of these tables, probably nursing his stupid face and bemoaning the state of his existence to some simpering bar girl. This was a chance too good to miss.

Rapunzel hadn’t been easy to persuade. It had taken almost ten minutes of reassurances from Cass about her superior combat skills just to get Rapunzel to put the cloak _on_ , let alone set foot inside the pub. Those soft green eyes had watched her - wide and trusting in a way that made Cass feel even _worse_ \- the whole time Cass was looping and tucking her hair up beneath her cloak. It gave her shoulders a bulky look, but hey, in a place like the Duckling, _bulky_ would help her blend right in.

She’d set Fidella loose, of course. She'd told her to wait in Owl’s Clearing for them. 

And she’d told her to expect to carry not two, but _three_ passengers back to Corona.

The sound of Rapunzel clearing her throat jerked Cass back to the present, and she began to recite, “Don’t wander off. Don’t make eye contact with anyone. Don’t touch anything.”

Strange. She spoke with the same kind of sunny, forced-cheerfulness that the other servants used when reciting instructions back to Old Lady Crowley. Desperate to please. Desperate to _pacify_.

 _There is so much I don’t know about this girl_.

“Head down,” Rapunzel went on. “Hair hidden. Hood up at all times. And most importantly -”

She drew herself up and put on an expression of deadly seriousness.

“- don’t talk to _an-y-one_ ,” she intoned, lowering her voice and stretching out the word in a perfect imitation of how Cass had said it to her outside. Cass snickered.

“Nice. Flattering. Thanks, Raps.”

Something brightened in Rapunzel’s face, behind her eyes. Like a candle being lit. 

“Raps,” she repeated, a little grin turning up the corners of her lips. “ _Raps_. I like it!” She squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. I promise, I’m really good at following rules. Mother has lots of them.”

Cass shot her a glance. “She does, huh?”

“Mm-hm. We got this! And, even if we don’t got this, I know you’ll protect us anyway. Right?”

Cass puffed up her chest. All of a sudden, it seemed very important that Rapunzel see her fight before their little trip came to an end, and her heart thrummed excitedly at the thought. She fought down the sudden, wild desire to draw her sword and challenge the nearest thug to a duel. 

“...Right,” she muttered. “And _you’ve_ got your pan. If things go south, just smack them over the head like you did with me, okay? Now come on, let’s find Rider.”

Which was easier said than done, Cass soon realised, taking into account the flickering candlelight that cast weird, eerie shadows across every man’s face, throwing their features into disarray. They passed a bickering group hunched over a corner table, and Cass caught a few words of Saporian, something about essential oils and a hot air balloon. _Separatists,_ probably. She shot them a filthy look from under her hood, steering Rapunzel towards the bar. 

Or rather - the contorted nest of overlapping tree roots shaped like something roughly _resembling_ a bar. The bartender was slumped on top, drying a filthy glass with an even filthier rag. Foul-smelling sludge bubbled thickly on the stove behind him in a pot that might have been a helmet in its previous life.

A mangy cat drooped over his shoulder. Its single yellow eye bugged out hungrily as it locked on Rapunzel’s little lizard, who squeaked and disappeared into the folds of her hood. 

Cass tossed a few coppers onto the bar, still scanning the tables for Rider. “Two cups of bimberry wine.”

Both the cat and the man blinked at her as though _she_ was speaking Saporian. 

“Whatcha’ playing at?” growled the man, loud enough to make Rapunzel shrink into her cloak like a tortoise disappearing into its shell. “This ain’t the royal wine cellar, missy. _Bimberry wine,_ she says. Ha!”

“Beer then,” Cass snapped, hurriedly shoving a handful of silver coins across the blackened counter-top where they spun and shimmered, stars against an ebony sky. The man’s eyes bugged out greedily, not unlike his cat, all suspicion eclipsed by greed.

“Sure, missy, coming right up.” He ogled her coin pouch hopefully. “Anything else I can do you for?” 

“Now that you mention it, I’m looking for -” She hesitated. Would mentioning Rider's name give her act away? “- for a lady with a skull necklace. Trades in rare substances, antidotes, that sort of thing. I think she’s some sort of apothecarist. Or a witch doctor. Or -”

“I’m a lot of things, honey.”

The bartender froze. A new voice had joined the conversation, drawling its way between the two of them like sticky toffee, and Cass snapped her head around, seeking its source. 

Down at the far end of the bar, a woman was draped on a stool. Tendrils of auburn hair coiled lazily about her face. A skull pendant swung from her neck, matching the tattoo adorning one shoulder. Long, shapely legs slinked out before her, basking in the heat of the fireplace. A cutlass swung from her hip, its blade gleaming wetly in the scarlet firelight as though soaked with blood.

 _...Whoa,_ Cass thought with a swallow, and wondered vaguely if she was saying it about the woman or the sword. Probably both. It was usually both.

The bartender looked ready to bolt.

“...Excuse me,” Cass said coolly. She didn’t appreciate being interrupted. “I need to speak to one of your - customers. Tall guy, shiny hair, shinier teeth. Insufferable ego. Oh, and a nasty gash across his face. Ring any bells?”

The woman didn’t look away from the flames licking at her boots, but a smirk slid across her lips. Knowing. Almost - _inviting_. “Maybe.”

The bartender shuffled away into the shadows behind the bar and made a great show of sloshing beer into tankards. Not a great sign.

“Great,” Cass deadpanned. “Helpful. So, did he stop by recently? Did you see where he went? What do you know?”

The woman’s grin caught the firelight, sharp as the curved blade of her cutlass. She beckoned to Cass with one finger, coaxing out the stool beside her with the heel of her boot. “Why don’t you get over here and find out?”

Cass felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle.

_Cutlass. Rose tattoo. Skull pendant._

_...I know who you are_ , she realised, with a feeling like cold water trickling down her spine. Why hadn’t she put the pieces together sooner? No wonder the bartender had practically wet himself. 

The woman was a pirate. And not just any pirate, but one of the most feared in all the Seven Kingdoms. Cass had grown up hearing Dad curse her name on an almost weekly basis as she raided the King’s ships with reckless abandon. She’d never forget the day that particular batch of wanted posters had first shown up, _thousands_ of them, a vast city of boxes carpeting the floor and desk of Dad’s office. She could remember peeping inside a box when Dad wasn’t looking, gazing in horrified awe at the woman who smirked back at her in black-and-white, head thrown back, _shameless_ , as though posing for a royal portrait rather than a wanted poster. 

The list of crimes was so long, it had been printed in tiny, cramped letters beneath the name _Lady Caine_.

Of course, _of course_ she was buddies with Rider, Cass thought bitterly. They were two sides of the same coin, each of them criminal legends in their own right. The only difference was that one terrorised the seas instead of the cities.

_If she knew whose daughter I was, she’d -_

“- Cassandra?” Rapunzel’s whisper fluttered nervously against her cheek. “Is she - is the lady ruffian - going to help us find Rider?”

“Yeah, I think she might. For a price.”

“She’s painted her _shoulder_ ,” Rapunzel whispered, half-awed, half-horrified, and Cass snorted into the hood of her own cloak. 

“Trust me. I can handle a lady ruffian with a painted shoulder. Here -” She coaxed Rapunzel down onto the nearest barstool, folding the cloak around her like a protective shroud. “- don’t move, in case we need to make a quick getaway, okay? I’m going to find out what she has to say.”

Rapunzel’s eyes stared up into hers, wide and fearful and trusting all at once. 

“Okay. Um. Be careful.”

Her hood was inching its way back from her face, tiny wisps of hair drifting through the gaps in the sides, and Cass felt a sudden, unexpected rush of affection. Brave girl. She was trying so hard. Cass tucked the strands hurriedly back out of sight, pulling the hood down low over Rapunzel’s face for good measure.

“Remember the rules. And keep your hood up - that crazy hair of yours keeps trying to escape.”

* * *

Sighing, Rapunzel tucked her bare feet up on the threadbare cushion of the barstool, rested her chin on top of her knees - and settled down to wait. Pascal curled himself into a ball on her shoulder, a tiny green pebble. She stroked him absently with one finger, worrying her lip with her teeth.

“It’s okay, Pascal. She’ll be fine.” Pascal made a tiny chirp that slid up at the end in hopeful agreement, and Rapunzel nestled her cheek against the top of his cool head. “She’s a royal guard, remember? She knows what she’s d -”

But she never got to finish her sentence, because at that precise moment, Pascal let out a high-pitched _scream_ of a squeak, and launched himself off her shoulder, like a mouse fleeing a cat.

As it turned, that was exactly what he was doing. 

“ _Pascal!_ ”

For a second, she thought the bartender had thrown a balled-up mangy blanket over her shoulder - until the blanket yowled, splayed its hooked claws, and bounded off after Pascal with its fangs bared in a _hiss_. 

“No, no! Bad cat! Stop!” Rapunzel cried, but her voice was lost in the roar of the pub around her. She catapulted off her stool and charged across the pub after the two animals. “Please, don’t hurt him!”

Tables blurred past her in a haze of clinking tankards and candles, until suddenly the back door loomed ahead, and for a split-second, she wondered if Pascal might make a dive through the cat flap - but Pascal, _her_ Pascal, was far too smart for that. At the very last moment, he dove into the shadows of a cramped alcove beside the door, disappearing under the table, whilst the mangy-blanket-cat barreled forward straight through the cat flap. Rapunzel let out a cry of relief. 

“Clever Pascal!” she sang, clapping her hands in delight. She collapsed to her knees at the mouth of the alcove, getting down on her elbows to crawl under the table as she had so many times before - eighteen years of hide-and-seek with a colour-changing chameleon had made her _very_ resourceful at squeezing into nooks and crannies around the tower. “Pascal? It’s me! You can come out, you’re safe!”

She pushed a hand out into the gloom, palm upwards for him to crawl into. A familiar little green head peeped out from between a pair of polished leather boots. 

“Pascal?”

And then the boots - _moved_ , and Rapunzel nearly smacked her head on the table above her.

A warm, easy chuckle drifted from the other side of the tabletop. Like butter melting over hot toast. Chair legs scraped. Pascal let out a tiny _squeak_ of warning and pelted into her arms. 

And the owner of the boots stood up.

“If by Pascal, you mean the re- _mark-_ ably sneaky frog hiding under my chair right now...what do you know, I’m your guy!”

A pair of hands fastened around the edge of the table above her, and Rapunzel watched in a horrified daze as they tipped it backwards, slowly, _inevitably_ , until she was blinking and trembling in the light of the candles once more.

“Now, why don't you come out from under my table, blondie,” said the man grinning down at her with teeth that gleamed brighter than all the candles in the pub put together, “and let me buy you a drink instead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Our girls are in hot water now :)))))
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	8. A Pirate's Deal

* * *

> _“And now that I've got (the crown), it doesn't_
> 
> _even matter. Look what's become of me.”_
> 
> _\- The Baron to Eugene, revealing his Kai_
> 
> _venom scarring, Flynnposter, S3 Ep17_

* * *

_Oh flower. What have you got yourself into now?_

Rapunzel lay splayed back on the floor in the tangled mess of her own hair, a fly caught in a spider's web, staring at the ruffian above her in numb terror. How could she have been so blind? She’d been so busy scrambling around under the table to find Pascal, she’d hadn’t even seen the ruffian sitting _right there._

 _Ditzy_ , sang Mother, smug and horrible in her head. _And, hm, what’s that word I used before - help me, darling - ah yes -_ vague _. Oh pet, I’m only being honest with you. You’re so painfully young for your age! Still a little girl fumbling in the big wide world! And Cassandra’s not around to protect you now -_

\- Oh! _Cassandra!_ She’d forgotten all the rules, she’d run off without a thought, she’d done _exactly_ what the woman had expressly forbidden her too! She’d be furious. No, worse than that. She’d be _disappointed_. Rapunzel shrank into the floor. The metal handle of the frying pan dug into her calf where Cassandra had strapped it with a bit of leather.

_If things go south, just smack them over the head like you did with me, okay?_

But this ruffian was...not like the others. In fact, now Rapunzel was looking at him properly, this ruffian was unlike any man she’d ever seen before. This man was tall, and his body had a lean, slender shape to it, a bit like Cass and yet very much _not_ like Cass. Thick shining hair fell in a careless sort of disarray across his forehead. Warm, chocolate-brown eyes crinkled in bemusement. He lounged against the wall of the alcove, one arm slung behind his head as though posing for a portrait, grinning down at her.

There was something - _infectious_ about that grin, something cheerful and unburdened. Unbidden, she felt her own lips tug into a small, shy smile of their own. All her fear seemed to melt away beneath his smile. 

_...Handsome,_ she thought, the word coming to her instinctively, fitting the man like a glove. Handsome. The sort of man Mother sometimes talked about, who gave ravishing compliments and talked about how young you looked whilst you were buying parsnips. Rapunzel had never really understood why Mother made such a fuss about them. Until now.

Rapunzel stared. And stared. And stared.

 _Wow_.

The man cleared his throat loudly, bracing his arms against the table and leaning down between them to speak to her. 

“I, uh, hm - I know not who you are, nor how you came to be here, but may I just say - _hi_ ,” he said in a voice at least three octaves lower than before. Rapunzel blinked. “How’re you doing. Name’s Flynn _Imean_ Eugene. Definitely Eugene. How’s your day going, huh?”

“Um,” she whispered. The man was doing something very strange with his face. One of his eyebrows had gone crooked, and he was giving her a slanting, lopsided sort of smirk. It made him look one of her wobbly paintings from when she was five-years-old. “Hi. What sort of ruffian are you?”

The man flashed his teeth at her (no fangs - check). “For you, goldie, I can be anything you want me to be.” He unfurled a hand towards her with a flourish, waggling his fingers to indicate she should take it. “Here, let me help you up.”

Rapunzel examined his outstretched hand thoughtfully. For a ruffian, he was certainly _very_ polite.

“Don’t you want to steal my hair?” she blurted, feeling her cheeks burn as soon as the words slipped out, because it sounded a bit stupid, even rude, when he’d been nothing but, well, _nice_ so far. The man blinked at her, hand still dangling awkwardly out in front of him. 

“Uh...nope. Not to brag or anything, but I’m, uh, _pre-_ tty much covered in the hair department.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Rapunzel smiled, watching him rake a hand back through his (very gorgeous, and he clearly knew it) hair so it tumbled and shone. 

So...he _was_ just like Cassandra - another person from Outside who didn’t know the first thing about her hair, let alone want to steal it. Two in one day! What were the odds? She couldn’t wait to tell Mother.

Feeling much calmer now, Rapunzel put her hand into Eugene’s and let him pull her to her feet in a tangle of hair. His eyes slid down her throat, one brow quirked. 

“Nice pendant.”

“ _Oh_ -” The diamond had swung out from her neckline; she stuffed it back quickly, heart thudding. “Thank you! It’s not mine. Well. I guess _this_ part is. But not the rest of it. That belongs to my friend..."

She tried to sidle past him - and promptly tripped over her hair instead. Strong arms caught her before she could hit the floor, levering her gently back onto her feet with a low chuckle, warm breath dusting her cheek. 

“Easy there, sunshine.” He brushed waves of hair off her shoulders with surprising gentleness. “Wow. How long’ve you been growing _this_ out?” 

“Um. Forever?”

“You gotta tell me what conditioner you’re using, because oh man, I have _got_ to get me some of that! Must be magic in a bottle!”

Rapunzel laughed a high, breathless laugh, tugging nervously at a piece of hair with her fingers. “M-magic. Yeah...I guess you could say that.”

“I like it,” he grinned, tucking a rogue strand behind her ear, as though to see her face more clearly. His fingertips lingered. “Makes you even more beautiful.” 

Rapunzel tensed, eyeing him warily. Waiting for the punchline. Mother always had a punchline, and Rapunzel was always too slow to spot them. It made the sting even worse, when it came. 

_I see a strong, confident, beautiful young lady...oh look, you’re here too! Ha-ha!_

“So what’s the story, goldie?” Eugene was saying, cheerfully oblivious. “What’s a beautiful young lady like yourself doing in a, _ha,_ five-star joint like this?” 

There it was again. _Beautiful._ He said the word so casually, tossing it at her. Like he was stating something obvious. 

Like he _meant_ it.

She was still processing this revelation when Eugene pulled a second chair seemingly out of thin air, twirling it around to face his own. “Here, why don’t you make yourself comfortable. That hair must give you a killer neck ache.”

(What a thoughtful man he was, under all the swagger.)

Eugene pretended to sweep her seat clean with a loop of hair - Rapunzel winced; it was the sort of thing that would have made Mother _screech_ with horror - before gesturing grandly for her to sit. “Your throne awaits, my lady.”

Rapunzel giggled before she could stop herself, and Eugene grinned, emboldened. He picked up a match from the candle dish, struck it against the edge of the table, and lit the sunken candle with a flourish. Warm amber light flooded the alcove, giving it a cheerful, cosy glow (though Rapunzel couldn’t help but notice that the man slipped the spare matches into his doublet, the gesture so casual it was almost _instinctive_ , but she decided that as thieves went, he was certainly the kindest one she’d ever met). The light illuminated a few other objects on the table, nothing very interesting - a bowl of water, a rag, an empty bottle. 

“Well, I’m actually on my way to see the floating - I mean, the lanterns,” she chirped, plopping down in her seat, whilst Eugene sprawled across other chair, leaning towards her. “I’ve been dreaming about it my entire life!”

“Special occasion?”

Rapuzel nodded vigorously. “For my birthday! I’m going to be eighteen.”

"All alone? On your _eighteenth?_ Aw blondie, that's too bad. I'd be happy to -"

“Oh that's okay, I'm with a friend,” Rapunzel smiled, giving his outstretched hand a reassuring squeeze. "Well - more of a guide, actually. A companion? Mm. It's complicated. Anyway, she's up there at the bar, the woman in the cloak -”

And then Eugene tilted his head into the candlelight, illuminating the half of his face that had previously stood in shadow, and Rapunzel clapped both hands to her mouth in horror. 

* * *

“You gonna sit, honey, or just stand there glaring at me all day?”

Cass gritted her teeth. Judging by the way the woman was grinning up at her, shameless, even a little _daring,_ she could see exactly how much the endearment bothered her. It had been years since someone had called her by a pet name. The last time -

Well, the last time, she’d been thirteen, gangly and awkward and hopelessly crushing on the exuberant older daughter of the visiting Neserdnian ambassador. After carefully observing what Dad’s men did when they wanted to win a girl’s affections, Cass had visited the girl in her chambers, and - blushing furiously - presented her with a sad, squashed bunch of wildflowers she’d painstakingly picked from the woods. The girl had squealed with delight and called her _little darling_ and pecked her on the cheek, and _that_ \- well, that was that. A few blissful weeks passed, during which Cass picked more flowers than she had in her life, which Dad encouraged with almost manic enthusiasm, calling it _the perfect hobby for a girl your age_ …

...Until the ambassador remarked at a royal dinner how many flowers his daughter was receiving from a mysterious admirer, and Dad spat out his wine all over the tablecloth, and everything fell apart. Suddenly, Cass was too busy to pick flowers, with a schedule that confined her to the laundry from dawn until dusk, and the Neserdnian girl was sent home early, whispers of a scandal trailing in her wake, and Dad wasn’t speaking to her _at all_ -

She’d put the pieces together, of course. She always did.

But _knowing_ didn't make it hurt any less.

...Cass shook herself. _Whatever_. The joke was on Caine. She refused to give her the satisfaction of a rise. 

Cass sat down and shunted her stool forward with an impatient _scrape_ of wood against wood, tucking one foot up on the seat whilst leaving the other swinging. Old Lady Crowley’s voice cracked inside her head like a whip - _sit properly, girl, you’re not a stable boy!_ \- but she set her jaw stubbornly and ignored it. 

“Okay, lady, start talking,” she muttered, flicking a cockroach off the hem of her cloak and sending it scuttling away across the ash-strewn hearth. The woman grinned, extending a (long, _long_ ) leg. The heel of her boot came down with a _crunch_.

“Cute place, huh?” She kicked the dead insect into the flames and lounged back on her stool. “Still. It has its perks. My father always wanted somewhere rustic to retire someday, and you don’t get more rustic than a pub half-eaten by a tree, do you? Not to mention, the _infinite_ supply of kegs to drown himself in.” She rolled her eyes with fond exasperation. “Me, on the other hand - _I’ve_ always been more of a fresh air and open sea kind of girl...”

“Cut the chit-chat. Where’s Rider.”

The woman made a sound low in her throat, somewhere between a tut-tut and a chuckle. “Someone’s impatient. Rough day, honey?”

_You have no idea._

“Believe it or not, _some_ of us have places to be besides a grimy backwater bar.”

Caine shrugged, a languid roll of her bare shoulders. “Worse places to be, in this darling kingdom of ours. My father taught me to enjoy the moment, no matter where that might be.”

“My father taught me to get to the point,” Cass said coolly, reaching for her coin pouch, and the woman’s eyes flashed with something that might have been anger or amusement or a melting pot of the two. “Need a bit of incentive? Here.”

She upended her coin pouch over the stretch of bar that lay between them. The woman didn’t so much as glance at the money. Only her lips moved, curling into a crimson smirk.

“ _Please_. If I wanted your purse, I’d have it already.”

Cass blinked. “What kind of pirate doesn’t want silver?”

A stray coin bounced past the woman’s elbow, _pinging_ over the edge of the bar towards the crackling fire. Caine swiped it from the air without looking, making the flames shimmer. She held the coin up the light, her face oddly...detached somehow, like the cold mask of an executioner - but Cass could see her scarlet thumbnail digging, _scraping_ across the carved outline of King Frederic’s profile, solemn and scowling as he gazed out upon the patrons of the Snuggly Duckling.

Huh. Interesting. 

“A pirate with her eye on a different kind of prize,” Caine murmured, eyes still locked on the King’s face. “One that can’t be bought. So keep your pocket money, palace girl.”

Cass froze, hand poised in the middle of scooping up her silver. “I’m not from the palace.”

The woman snickered, flipping the coin lazily up and down her fingers. “ _Don’t_ try to be coy with me, honey, we both know it’s not your strong suit. You’re lucky it was only me who saw you bungle your cover up at the bar. Trust me, I could _smell_ the entitlement on you even before you asked Toy for _bimberry wine -_ ” 

Cass glared, snatching the coin out of the woman’s hand and stuffing it back in her pouch with the rest. “Sorry, not all of us enjoy chugging _fermented cereal_.”

“Sorry, not all of us can afford anything else.”

“Ha! Please! As if _you’ve_ ever worked a single honest day in your -”

The woman raised a single brow. Daring her to continue. 

_Remember who you’re talking to._

Cass slammed her jaw shut, fuming. She needed Caine on her side. Or at least, as much as a pirate ever _could_ be on anyone’s side except their own. Caine was watching her struggle with a horrible, serene kind of amusement, a snake watching its prey suffocate in their coils. Cass sucked in a breath.

“...Okay. What’s it to you...if I do...work at the palace?” she muttered, forcing out the words with a slow, deliberate calmness that sounded every bit as pained as it felt. The absurdity of it all, the sheer _injustice_ of having to address a pirate with such deference and care - it made her want to hit something. 

Caine looked at her. One hand fluttered, almost unconsciously, to the skull pendant lying in the hollow of her throat, her thumb tracing the jagged edge like a woman might trace her wedding ring. To remember. 

"Everything," she breathed.

* * *

“...Oh,” Rapunzel whispered, voice soft with an almost - _reverent_ horror, for the sight that lay before her. 

The left side of the man’s face had been slashed, from chin to temple, an ugly crimson gash criss-crossed with clumsy stitches. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the lurid green blotches rippling out from the wound like bruises, giving his skin a sickly, mottled look. Rapunzel gaped, her heart beating very fast in her chest. 

Mother had warned her about a lot of things, but never something like _this_.

(Strange. The green reminded her of Cassandra’s wound. Were _all_ weapons in the Outside World daubed with colour?)

“- Oh. Ah. _Right_.”

Eugene seemed to deflate, slowly, before her eyes. It was like watching a man shed his best clothes to reveal the half-finished seams and clumsy stitches underneath. The beaming smile disappeared, and the alcove seemed abruptly less cosy, less warm without it. Instead, he grimaced at her, one hand darting to his cheek, not quite touching, but - _conscious_. Maybe a bit embarrassed. 

“Sorry. Keep forgetting about the whole face thing. It’s, uh, _new_. Bit of an eyesore, huh?” He gave a hollow laugh. “Kai venom. _Green_ , you know. Classic.”

“You mean it's poisonous? Someone _poisoned_ you?” Rapunzel whispered, horrified. “How could they? You’re so -” She blushed, catching herself just in time. “Why - why would anyone want to attack _you?_ ”

“You’d be surprised,” Eugene said wryly, giving her a thoughtful look.

“But won’t the venom keep spreading? Like a snake bite? Mother’s told me all about snakes. Snake venom - k-kills -”

“Oh hey, _hey_ , sunshine -” Eugene reached towards her, but seemed to think better of it at the last second, turning the gesture into a placating wave of the arms instead. “- it’s okay, I already took the anti-venom. Don’t worry. Not dying. Just...suffering a _teeny_ -tiny setback in the looks department. Clearly, the universe just couldn’t handle the sheer force of my own attractiveness and had to correct course before it imploded on itself or something.” 

In spite of herself, Rapunzel spluttered out a tiny, slightly hysterical laugh. Something softened in Eugene’s gaze as he watched her. 

“That’s better,” he murmured, leaning across her to grab the rag from the table, dipping it into the bowl of water and wringing it out methodically, before holding it up to his face, covering the wound. He gave her a winning look out of the eye that wasn’t covered. 

“Ta-da! See? Totally covered. You’d never know what was underneath. Hey, let me tell you, come masked ball season, I am going to make a _splash_ …” 

He winked jovially at her, but his grin was too big somehow, too forced. Like the smile Rapunzel always plastered across her face when Mother forgot her birthday. Hiding the pain underneath. 

Rapunzel felt her laughter die in her chest, her smile sliding off her lips like water. 

_Oh, the poor man._

She had to help him. She simply had to. Her heart ached for him, a dull weight in her chest that only seemed to get heavier, the more she looked at him. Something beautiful had been torn apart, and - _she_ could heal it. She could make it better.

Just like she did for Cass.

Just like she did for Mother.

Rapunzel tucked her bare feet beneath her, kneeling up on the chair beside the man so their faces were on a level. Eugene watched her with a faintly bemused look as she gathered up a handful of warm golden hair, combing it through with her fingers a few times, before holding it up between them like a bandage. 

“May I see?”

Eugene blinked at her, nonplussed. “You, uh - you sure you want to, blondie? I’d rather you enjoyed my good side.” 

“Please?”

Eugene heaved a sigh, as though resigning himself to some private defeat - but he let the rag fall, tilting his face towards her. 

“...Anything for you, sunshine.”

* * *

The fire crackled softly, leaping sparks illuminating the tiny gaping jaws of the skull pendant.

All at once, Caine slid forward on her stool - Cass stiffened instinctively, one hand going to her sword - but the woman simply smirked and slinked one arm out across the length of the bar between them, settling beside Cass’s elbow and leaning in towards her. A riot of auburn curls tumbled forward over her shoulder, and Cass caught a waft of salt that tingled in her nose.

When Caine spoke, the words were breathed so softly that they barely stirred the air between them.

“Eighteen years, two months, twenty-three days. That’s how long my father - my simple, harmless, _petty thief_ of father - has been gone. Haven't seen him since I was younger than you. Ever since dear old Fred’s crusade of terror (oh, sorry, you’ll know it as the _Purge,_ of course), he's been rotting alive in that hell-soaked cave Fred has the audacity to call a _palace dungeon._ "

 _...Just for petty theft?_ Cass thought, her stomach clenching uncomfortably. And then she caught herself. No - no, that was as it _should_ be. Crime was crime. Wrongdoers had to be punished. Harsh sentences sent a message out loud and clear. And it was people like Caine's father, people who refused to _hear_ that message, who ensured Dad could never rest easy at night. Cass would not allow herself _one shred_ of sympathy here. Pirates deserved nothing more. 

“Let me guess,” Cass muttered, trying not to let the sinking feeling of dread in her stomach show on her face. “You need someone on the inside to help break him out.”

A slow, delighted grin spread across the woman’s face.

“Clever girl,” she purred, sidling closer, _closer_ , until Cass felt their knees bump gently. She jolted away. “That’s a half-decent brain you’ve got hiding under all those pretty curls -”

Cass caught the woman's outstretched wrist before her fingers could reach her hair, heart thudding very fast all of a sudden. “Get to the point.”

“The _point_ ,” Caine said, jerking her wrist free with a look of bemusement, “is that I intend to make sure my father and I can sail the seas again, together, _before_ old age or prison food or too much rum - knowing him, it’ll be the rum - finally take him to the Sun. I need someone the guards trust. And I think you might be just the girl to help us out. Don’t you?”

Cass stiffened.

_Does she know who I am?_

* * *

Up close, Eugene’s wound was like something out of a nightmare.

Rapunzel breathed deeply, gulping down a sudden rush of nausea. She could see just how deep the blade had cut, could see the tiny, wriggling veins of green that mottled his skin. It was as though someone had dragged a sword through the flesh of his cheek the same way they might drag it through a hunk of meat. Clean. Precise. 

_Intentional_. 

She shivered.

“Blondie? You okay? Listen, you don’t have to -”

“I’m going to heal you, Eugene,” she whispered, stroking all that soft, shiny hair away from his cheek, and feeling him go utterly still beneath her touch. She lifted the chunk of her own hair instead, drawing back to give him a bright, reassuring smile. “With this.”

“Uh... _wh -_ ”

“You’ll see,” she smiled. “Don't worry. I’m going to make the pain go away. I promise. And when I promise something, I never, ever break that promise. Just don’t...don’t...freak out, okay?”

* * *

This whole thing had been nothing more than a dangerous detour, Cass thought bitterly, shredding the hem of her cloak between her fingers. She couldn't pay the price Caine was charging for her information. Break one man out, to bring Rider in? Out of the question. How could she ever look Dad in the face again? She’d be a traitor to Corona. Sure, she’d still have her glory at the end of it, but at what cost?

Integrity. Honesty. Justice. All those things her kingdom stood for. Dad stood for. _She_ stood for.

What a waste of time.

_Stupid, smug, useless pirate._

“...You know what.” 

Cass drew herself up imperiously on her stool, fixing Caine with a withering look. 

“I don’t need help from the likes of you, or anyone else. I’ll find Rider myself.”

Caine’s low, drawling chuckle filled the little space that remained between them. “Your _face,_ honey. So scandalised. I’m only asking you to unlock one man’s cell, not steal the Seal of Equis.”

_You’ve got to be kidding me._

Cass was on her feet before she’d even consciously made up her mind to stand. 

“ _Only_ one man’s cell?” she hissed, bearing down on Caine with her cloak still bunched in one hand. " _Only?_ As if that makes a difference, as if that _justifies_ it! Don’t you get it? Your pilfering father got what was coming to him. He _deserves_ that cell. Just be grateful he didn’t get worse. The Royal Guard works day and night to keep Corona as safe and peaceful as it is, and if you think for a second I’d go against everything the Captain has spent the past _eighteen years_ building for the sake of some _drunken thief_ -”

“Careful, dear.” Something cold had entered Caine’s voice for the first time. The smirk was gone. “That’s thin ice you’re walking on, there. Don’t think I won’t cut your throat just because you’re cute.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Cass hissed, a vicious sense of justice, of _righteousness_ coursing through her as she bent over her stool towards the woman. “And I’d sooner chase Rider across the Seven Kingdoms for the rest of my life than help a pair of _filthy pirates like you!_ ”

Silence, for a moment.

Cass breathed heavily, still shaking with anger. Caine sat perfectly still. Then -

“That was foolish, honey,” she breathed, and her voice was the low hiss of a snake, coiling itself up, fangs bared to strike. “Shame. I thought dear old Cap would have taught his little brat better.”

Cass felt the colour drain from her face. 

_She knows._

The bar stools toppled to the ground with a _crash._

Cass hit the ground running, pausing only to kick Caine’s legs out from under her before throwing herself back up the bar. Behind her, she heard Caine’s head hit the mantelpiece with a nasty _thunk_.

“ _Raps!_ Run for the d -” Her voice broke off in a strangled cry. “ _Raps?_ ”

She barely had time to register the empty stool and abandoned cloak lying crumpled on the floor, before a hand seized her own cloak from behind and _tugged._

“ _N -!_ ”

It happened in an instant. One second, the cloak was swathed safely around her head and shoulders - the next, it was swiped clean away. Cass whipped around, sword drawn and brandished in both hands - 

And froze, as an entire pub of Corona’s finest criminals stared back at her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: What a disaster :D
> 
> We'll be taking a little break over the holiday season, but I'll be back after Christmas with a new chapter for you all. Writing this fic has been one of the few highlights of 2020 for me, and a huge part of that is due to the enthusiasm and love from you guys. I want to thank you all for brightening my year, and being the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful readers a writer could ask for!
> 
> More after Christmas. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	9. Daughter For Ransom

* * *

> _“...Keep the Captain’s daughter as a bargaining chip.”_
> 
> _\- the Stabbingtons, Cassandra v Eugene, S1 Ep05_

* * *

“Boys, gather round!”

Caine’s voice carried across the room like the cry of a seagull - the voice of someone used to commanding a ship’s crew above the roar of the ocean. She basked in the centre of the gawking crowd, one hand slanted at her hip, the other swishing Cass’s stolen cloak over her shoulder like a magician revealing their finest act. Cass fixed the woman with every ounce of loathing she could muster.

Caine’s answering smile was pure poison.

“We have an esteemed guest in our midst, descended from on-high to grace us with her righteous presence! Let’s give a warm welcome to the Captain of the Guard’s _very own daughter!_ ” 

There was a single, leaden beat of silence. Like the moment just before a canon goes off. It was as though the entire bar needed a minute to bring their collective single brain cell together and catch up to what Caine was talking about. 

“What do you think, boys?” Caine purred, and her voice was dangerously soft now, soft as a caress, as the delicate _hiss_ of metal-against-metal as she drew the cutlass from her hip, swinging it thoughtfully as she advanced on Cass. “What price do you think the Cap would pay to have his precious little girl back safe and sound?”

Cass raised her sword and jutted out her chin, mutinous. “Let me guess. Unlock _one man’s cell_.”

Caine grinned like a cat. “And a cart full of gold for the boys.”

“It won’t work. Dad knows I can handle myself.”

“Mmm, that’s why he’s so eager to get you on the guard, right, hon?”

_This is bad. This is worse than bad. This is -_

Out of the corner of her eye, Cass saw a familiar purple-and-gold blur dart to her side. She swallowed down the urge to scream _where did you go, you stupid girl!_ and settled instead for, “Raps, get behind me now.”

Rapunzel obeyed without a word. Cass thrust out an arm, forming a barrier between Rapunzel and the gawping thugs, backing them against the nearest wall. Something warm clutched her shoulder as though for comfort, trembling slightly. Cass felt a rush of protectiveness. She reached up with one hand, patting it clumsily on top of Rapunzel’s, trying to communicate _I got this, Raps._

...One look at Caine’s face told her she _very much didn’t_. 

And then, right on cue - a roar of sound.

“Hey, the Lady’s right, it IS her!”

“Oh, it’s her all right! I’m gonna buy me a new hook -”

“- What about me? I’m broke! I call dibs!”

Chairs scraped. Tankards clattered over. Floorboards groaned in protest beneath the weight of studded boots, hookfeet and peglegs alike. Within seconds, a ring of mangled weapons and stinking animal skins and bare chests surrounded them both like something out of a nightmare - leering, hungry faces gaping at them like a pack of wolves. Cass could almost _see_ the gold coins spinning in their eyes.

“Get back, all of you! I said _get back!_ ” she bellowed, swerving this way and that, trying to shield Rapunzel against the wall and strike a suitably threatening pose all at the same time. “I’ll fight every one of you, if I have to! But you leave her alone, you hear me? She’s no part of this. Leave. Her. Alone!”

Too many, too many, and they just kept coming, and Caine was _cackling_ somewhere in the crowd, and Cass didn’t know where to look and _oh Sun above, what have I done?_ It was like being thrown out onto a stage - or an execution block - with a crowd baying for blood.

“Boys, _boys!_ ” Caine’s voice carried over the din, quelling it instantly. “Play nice. I’ll make sure you all get your share.” 

Like the parting tides of a sea, the thugs seemed to... _melt_ into two distinct halves, leaving an open corridor of space for Caine to saunter down. Several of them tugged off their helmets as she passed, ducking their heads sheepishly. Still more stared at their boots, avoiding her gaze just as the bartender had done. Caine swept her hair back like a preening bird, wearing the mantle of respect, authority, _leadership_ like a second skin.

Cass felt a sudden, stupid lurch of jealousy.

 _I deserve that._ _I deserve what those men are giving her._ _And I deserve it more than she ever could._

 _W_ _hy her, and not me?_ _Why a pirate, and not the Captain’s daughter?_

_...Why, Dad?_

Caine, meanwhile, had swept the sides of Cass’s cloak up on either side of her like a skirt, plunging into an elaborate, mocking curtsy towards her - “My lady, we are _honoured_.” - before tossing it into the fireplace with a _hiss_ of sparks. Cass flinched. 

“I think I speak for us all," Caine purred, parading in front of her, “when I say there isn’t a man here who hasn’t had the pleasure of experiencing your dear old Daddy’s - hmm, what’s the word - _dogged_ commitment to justice.”

The thugs roared with laughter. Flames seethed in the fireplace. The acrid scent of burning wool filled the air. Cass's hands shook around the hilt of her sword. Caine fanned herself delicately, fluttering her lashes and adopting an - eerily perfect - imitation of Quintonian high society.

“I, for one, appreciate being able to rest easy, knowing that every petty thief and street child - you know, the _real_ menaces to society - are being locked up in Freddy's _catacombs_ or packed off on prison barges where they belong. Goodness knows how we’d all sleep at night otherwise!”

“You done?” Cass muttered, deadpan, though her stomach was clenching uneasily at Caine’s words, and she hated herself for it. “Subtlety’s not really your strong suit, is it. Guess your father didn’t have time to teach you that before he got himself locked up.”

The silence that followed was somehow louder than a scream. Nobody moved, but Cass could practically _feel_ the air shift around her as all heads swung to Caine.

... _Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea._

A muscle twitched in Caine’s face. She smiled a cold, mirthless smile. 

“And how about your perfect, grovelling saint of a father? Still eating out of Fred’s hand like a loyal pup?”

“Better that than a sad old boozer glugging rum in a cell.”

Caine slapped her.

It wasn’t hard - wasn’t even much of a slap at all, really, more a quick _whack_ across the cheek that told her to shut up, but it still sent Cass staggering to her knees, sword clattering to the ground. 

_Yup. Definitely not a good idea._

“ _Cassandra!_ ” Rapunzel’s broken cry hurt almost as much as her stinging cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I’m f -”

She choked off as Caine’s hand seized her chin, jerking it upwards to look at her. Her nails dug into Cass’s cheeks, scrunching them together, and when Cass tried to speak, the words came out horribly mangled. “Get - _off_ \- m -”

“Manners, Cassandra,” Caine whispered, and her face was white with rage now, her cutlass shaking slightly in her hand. _Good_ , Cass thought viciously. She’d struck a nerve. "Wouldn't want to waste that priceless palace education now, would we? Let me teach you a little lesson of my own -" She bent over her, forcing Cass's chin to the ceiling, her jaw throbbing beneath her grip. "The higher you build that pedestal of yours, the farther you'll have to fall."

_...What?_

"Won't - f-fall -" Cass spat furiously, but Rapunzel’s fingers dug into her shoulder. Caine sneered.

" _Everyone_ falls, honey. Everyone writes their convictions on clean, white paper and gives themselves a nice pat on the back and then _rips them up_ the very next day. Everyone breaks their own rules. For something. For someone. We're all good, law-abiding citizens until we're _not_. I just hope I'm there to watch when it's your turn" - her voice softened to a purr, and she bent so close, Cass could see nothing but the dark, glittering venom in her eyes - "so I can enjoy. every. _second._ "

Cass had never hated another woman so much in her life.

"...That," she choked, "will _never_ happen to me."

Caine only smiled at her. Patient. _Knowing_. "You really are just as much of a self-righteous bootlicker as your father, aren't you."

"And you're just as much a worthless low-life as yours."

"Spoiled brat."

"Pirate scum."

“Um, guys?” Rapunzel cut in, her voice high-pitched and trembling. “Maybe if we s-stop being mean to each other and just talk about -”

“Stay out of this, Raps!”

Caine let her go with a shove that sent them both reeling back into the wall. She thrust out a hand, palm open. “Weapons. Give them here.” 

“Make me,” Cass spat, trying to massage some feeling back into her cheeks with the heels of her hands. 

“Oh honey, believe me,” Caine breathed, too soft, too _intimate_ for the raw loathing in her gaze. “I'd enjoy nothing more. But I can’t guarantee buttercup back there won’t get a little scratch along the way...”

“You - y - touch her and I’ll kill you,” Cass spluttered, feeling Rapunzel shudder delicately and huddle closer against her shoulder.

"Thought so," Caine smirked, eyes darting back and forth between them, and Cass had the sudden, horrible feeling that she - _knew_ something. Something Cass didn't. "So be a good girl now, and do as you're told."

Choking down rage, Cass scooped up her (beautiful, brand new, _Royal Guard's_ ) shortsword and tossed it to Caine, handle-first. Then the dagger from her belt. And her sleeve. And her boot. 

As Caine plucked the final weapon from her grip, a nasty rush of - loss, shame, almost _nakedness_ \- washed over her like a bucket of cold water. Her fingers flexed and curled around the empty air. _P_ _owerless,_ whispered a nasty voice inside her, and she beat it down, stomped it into silence. 

Caine ran one nail thoughtfully down Cass’s sword with a _screech_ that set her teeth on edge, pausing when she reached the hilt emblazoned with the Corona emblem.

"Ironic, isn't it. The Purge took my father the same day it gave you yours." She sneered. " _There's_ some classic Corona justice for you. Still...it's not about the hand you're dealt, is it? It's about how you _play_. That's the difference between me and you, Cassandra. Me, the most feared pirate in all the Seven Kingdoms, and you -" Her crimson lips formed a tiny, mocking pout. She lowered the tip of Cass's sword to her cheek, blunt-side up, and _nudged_. "One of Freddy's little _slaves_. A palace servant. A nobody."

 _Protect Raps_ , Cass thought desperately, cold steel digging into her cheek, body shaking with suppressed rage. _Don’t rise. Whatever you do, don’t rise._

The hand on Cass’s shoulder shifted uncertainly.

“…Servant?” whispered a tiny voice, just below her ear, and that single word froze the boiling pit of Cass’s anger like ice over a pond. “What - what does she mean, Cassandra? You’re not a palace servant, you’re a royal guard. Just like you told me.” 

Beat.

“...Aren’t you?”

Cass closed her eyes, and felt something inside her curl up and die.

“Raps, I can expl -”

A loud, theatrical cough - like an actor clearing their throat - interrupted her.

Everyone’s heads turned. The sound came from a shadowed alcove near the door, the same direction Rapunzel had come from a minute ago.

“Oh-ho man, this is awkward,” chuckled a familiar, butter-smooth voice as the figure emerged from the shadows, and Cass felt herself go utterly, perfectly still. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” she breathed, to no one in particular.

And yet, when Flynn Rider gave her a jaunty wave and swaggered out into the candlelight - Cass felt her breath catch in her throat.

His _face._

One half remained handsome, unblemished. The other bore a jagged slash from temple to jaw, a slash that only a sword - _her sword_ \- could have given him. The skin was mottled with patches of sickening green and bore a sallow, infected look.

...Well. That was - _w_ _ell._ Cass set her jaw. Served him right, didn’t it? That ought to have put a dent in that overblown ego of his. It was justice, pure and simple, and it was no more than he deserved. _Less_ , actually.

Once she dragged him back to Corona, that was when the real punishment would begin. 

“...Listen, blondie, don’t take it too hard, okay?” Rider was saying, strolling cheerfully through the thugs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Caine, who seemed utterly unfazed by his appearance, and Cass realised, with a sickening lurch, that _they were in this together_... 

Wait, did he say _blondie?_

"Got the attitude down pat, hasn't she. Spitting image of her dad too, but you know, _sans_ Mustache Of Ungodly Proportions, _plus_ Unfortunate Bowl Cut, so we gotta assume poor coiffure choices are a familial trait, huh..."

 _A trap_ , Cass thought numbly. _Rider needs that crown, Caine needs me. They made a bargain and set a trap._

And she’d fallen for it.

The world seemed to dissolve into red.

“ _Y_ _ou,_ ” Cass snarled. She was so angry, she could hardly breathe, the world swimming hazily under the blinding gleam of Rider’s oh-so-punchable grin. “You - you sneaking, spineless son-of-a -”

“Uh-uh, language, Cass- _an_ -dra,” Rider tutted, folding his hands contritely in front of his chest and shaking his head in mock-disapproval. “There are innocent teenage ears present! Blondie over here tells me she’s not turning eighteen until tomorrow…

He went on bloviating in his usual manner, but Cass tuned it out. A second, horrible realisation was only just dawning on her. _Blondie._ He’d said it again. And it was _Rapunzel_ that his eyes kept darting to every few seconds, as though checking to make sure she was definitely still listening to him.

...Sun help them both. _T_ _hat_ was where she’d disappeared off to, when she should have been waiting at the bar! Rider must have had his eye on her ever since she walked through the door! What had he said to her? Had he tried to flirt? Had he - _done anything else_ to her? A wave of nausea rushed over Cass at the thought. Rapunzel was so new to the real world, so naive, so painfully innocent. She probably wouldn’t even realise what a sleazy young man was trying to _do_ until he -

A loud cough interrupted her train of thought. Rider was giving her odd, bemused kind of look, and Cass realised she was pressing Rapunzel practically into the _wall_ behind them _,_ both arms outstretched like some kind of absurd human shield.

She met his grin with a look of pure disdain. 

“Nice face, Rider.” His grin faltered almost imperceptibly. “I can’t wait to see that on the wanted posters. Your fanclub’s going to have a meltdown. I’ll have to get one framed, especially for my room.”

Rider snorted, leaning around her to waggle his brows in Rapunzel’s direction. “Because _that’s_ not creepy at all, is it, sunshine -”

“You do realise no girl is ever going to look at you the same way again,” Cass drawled, the thought filling her with a horrible delight, and Rider blanched. “Poetic justice at its finest, huh? You destroyed my reputation. Now I’ve destroyed yours.”

Rider said nothing, but his gaze darted back and forth between Cass and _sunshine_ as though unable to stop himself. His jaw worked silently.

For goodness’ sake, could the guy be _any more obvious?_

“Cassandra, is - is _he_ -” Rapunzel asked in a horrified whisper, her breath tickling Cass’s ear. "But - but he told me his name was Eugene! I had no idea! He -" She gasped, sounding so astonished, so _affronted_ that it made Caine snicker. "He _lied_ to me!"

“Didn't pick this one for her brains, did you, honey?"

“Leave her alone,” snapped Cass, at the same moment Rider did, and Cass felt his eyes glance to her, curious and amused all at once.

“Look, Cass- _an_ -dra. The sooner you give up the crown, the sooner I can be on my merry way, and you won’t have to look at my _still_ fifty-per-cent-incomprehensively-gorgeous-face ever again. What do you say, huh?”

Rapunzel tensed behind her, but Cass only rolled her eyes. Just as she’d expected. “I don’t have it.” 

“Heh, yeah, ‘course you do,” Rider chuckled, “you’re trying to return it to the palace, restore your honour, get your one-way ticket to a convent cancelled, all that malarkey -”

“I don’t have it.”

“You -” Rider was doing something strange with his face, like a kid stumped by a particularly stubborn math problem. Beside him, Caine rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Oh, you’re _kidding_ me, what am I going to tell Burnsie and Patch -”

He cut off with a yelp as Caine shoved him aside with the pommel of her cutlass and vaulted herself onto the nearest table, spinning on her heel to face the pub. Every man in the room snapped to attention once more, chins tilting upwards in unison. 

“Here’s the deal, boys!” Caine called out, sweeping a hand towards Cass like a trader at an auction house. “Ten gold pieces for every man in this room who helps my crew keep the Captain's brat in check, whilst I’m gone. Who’s in?”

The ensuing roar of agreement from the thugs hit Cass in a minor hurricane of foul-smelling breath and cheap alcohol, and she gagged in silence.

“Cuff the three of them,” Caine tossed over her shoulder, sliding Cass's weapons into her belt and turning for the door.

It took Cass a minute to register exactly what she’d said.

... _Three?_

Rider laughed - the loud, forced laugh of someone who didn’t find the joke particularly funny, but thought it best to muster the effort anyway, to please the teller.

“Uh. Hang on, Caine, that’s - they’re -” He nodded towards Rapunzel, then Cass, unaware of the sallow-faced pirate sidling up behind him, tugging a pair of handcuffs from under his shirt, and Cass knew what was going to happen before it did. “- one, blondie - two, dragon lady -”

The handcuffs _clinked_ into place, and Rider went rigid. Cass ground her teeth. That should be _her_ job.

“Three, Flynn Rider,” Caine purred, lounging against the doorpost and looking disgustingly pleased with herself. “Sorry, honey. I’ve had my eye on you for a while. You’re worth a _delicious_ sum. And you’ll be the perfect carrot to dangle, if old Cap needs a little extra - persuasion, to accept my bargain.”

“Nice, Caine,” Rider deadpanned, jingling his handcuffs morosely. He didn't seem particularly perturbed, more irritated than anything else. "Real nice. Who’re you gonna double cross next, huh, your _horse?_ ”

The only reply he got was the _slam_ of the pub door as it swung shut behind the pirate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Caine gets to have her own Best Day Ever :))))))
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	10. Soft Powered Dreams

* * *

> _"Well, that wasn't very nice, Cass."_
> 
> _\- Rapunzel, Challenge Of The Brave, S1 Ep06_

* * *

Cass swung her head to Rider, fixed him with the most flat, dead-eyed look she could muster - and started to clap.

_Clink. Clink. Clink._

The jangling handcuffs ruined the effect somewhat, but Cass chose to ignore that fact and enjoy the way Rider seemed to physically _wilt_ under her gaze.

“Tell me, Rider,” she drawled. “On a scale of one to ten, just how stupid do you feel right now? Personally, my money’s on a twelve. Eleven, _easy_.”

The three of them were slumped on the pulpy remains of the floorboards beneath the bar, where rotten wood crumbled into mud and roots, squelching unpleasantly every time one of them shifted. Their hands had been bolted above their heads to the beer taps - all except Rapunzel. Nobody seemed to consider the trembling girl curled against Cassandra’s side in a muddled nest of her own hair to be much of a threat.

 _Well, considering she pretty much skipped straight into Flynn Rider’s arms as soon as I turned my back on her_ , _who can blame them?_

Cass dug the heel of her boot into the nearest floorboard, grinding it into a bit of blackened pulp. A nasty well of bitterness churned inside her. Stupid, naive, _thoughtless_ girl. Why hadn’t she listened? They were in this mess because of _her,_ plain and simple! She’d tossed aside Cass’s rules without a thought. Sure, Rider had probably charmed the socks off her, but _she’d let him_. If she’d stuck to the plan ( _their_ plan!), they’d be halfway back to the palace by now. 

...Of course, the same would also be true if Cass had never brought them into the Duckling at all, but that, _that_ was completely beside the p -

Rider let out a loud, obnoxious snort beside her. “What did that poor floorboard ever do to you, Cass- _an_ -dra?”

Cass kicked a bit of particularly wet, squelchy pulp in his direction, ignoring Rapunzel’s noise of protest. Rider’s yelp was worth it. 

“Ah! _Eugh!_ You know, this whole Revenge Crusade thing is getting old real fast.” He jabbed a finger at his face, a bitter edge to his voice now. “Couldn’t be satisfied with the damage you’ve already done, could you?"

“Oh, cry me a river, Rider." Cass twisted away, turning her back on him as best as she could with her hands still in her cuffs. “Raps - you got a hairpin? Need to get out of these cuffs -”

“You know something?” Rider said loudly, talking over her. “I don't think this is about me. Nope. Not really. Or the crown, either. I think, this is about _you_. It's about the Captain's daughter stabbing pins into every criminal she meets to make herself feel better about being, you know, _a terrible guard -_ "

_Thud._

“- _Cassandra!_ ” Rapunzel gasped, whilst Rider doubled over in pain, choking for air, curling his knees into his stomach where she'd kicked him. “Don’t hurt him!”

Cass didn't reply. The world burned white-hot around her, Eugene's voice filling her whole head, repeating _a terrible guard, a terrible guard, a terrible guard._ She drew in a shuddering breath. Sniffed. Shook her curls back, disdainful. 

"You're right, Raps. He's not worth it."

Rider tittered an uneasy chuckle, still half-curled into a fetal position, blinking at them through watering eyes. “Ooo, I really felt _that_ burn. Hey, if the palace gig doesn’t work out for you, I’m pretty sure there’s a local am-dram society missing its pantomime villain.”

“Nice, Rider. Creative. I could really feel the effort behind that one. Wow, maybe one of these days, you’ll open your mouth to insult me and actually come out with something halfway _clever_ …” Cass rolled her eyes and nudged Rapunzel with an elbow. “Pretty sad, huh, Raps?”

There was a strained beat of silence.

“...Raps?”

Cass glanced around. Rapunzel wouldn’t meet her gaze. Her lips were pressed together as she looked back and forth between them, a little disapproving frown creased between her brows.

“ _Raps_.”

Cass sighed fondly. Of course, she didn’t get it. Trash talking wasn’t exactly Rapunzel’s style, was it? She was all sweetness and smiles. Hell, she’d probably curtsy to Wreck Marauder himself and compliment his chest hair, if she ever met him.

“Hey, Raps, it’s okay. It’s just _Rider_. He’s -”

“I think we should stop being so cruel to each other, and try to find a way out of here,” Rapunzel said, demurely.

Rider blanched. Cassandra opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Rapunzel looked between them, her face the picture of neutral composure, and Cass was abruptly, _eerily_ reminded of Queen Arianna, presiding over a table of squabbling diplomats as she so often was, reprimanding each man in that quiet, graceful, slightly otherworldly way that only a royal could.

And then Rapunzel met her gaze, and Cass's heart turned over. There was something in her eyes. Something sad - no, worse, something _disappointed_. Like she didn't know her, anymore. Like she was questioning if she'd _ever_ known her. 

...Wait a second, _what?_ Had the world gone mad? This was all backwards! She - _she_ hadn’t done anything wrong! What did Rapunzel know about it, anyway? Nothing. Nothing at all. Cass drew herself up, hot indignance rising in her chest. 

“In case you need reminding, _I’m_ not the criminal here, Raps,” she hissed, leaning in to block Rider from her view. “Whatever sob story Rider’s been telling you -”

“But it wasn’t just a sob story!” Rapunzel burst out, a horrible catch in her voice, and _oh Sun above,_ if she started crying, Cass was done for - “You’ve seen his face! You’ve seen what you did to him, and you - you don’t feel _even_ the slightest bit of pity -”

“I gave him what he deserved.”

“ _Nobody_ deserves to suffer like that,” Rapunzel whispered, shaking her head, and there was that look in her eye again, a look that said _I don’t know you_ , and Cass could hardly stand it. “Even if they did do something bad. Nobody deserves what you did to Eugene.”

With that, she turned her back on them both, rose to her feet with all the grace of a princess, and strode away before Cass could so much as open her mouth.

“Raps - Raps, where are you going? Raps, _stop_ -”

Too late. Rapunzel marched away from them, making for the nearest table of laughing pirates bent over a game of dice. Her hair rippled out behind her like a cape, obscuring her face from view. 

“Uh...blondie -”

“Rapunzel, _are you insane?”_ Cass hissed, wrenching at her cuffs. “You’ve made your point, okay! Come back! You’re going to get yourself k - !”

“Hey. Um. You up there!” Rapunzel trilled. “You - you! Ruffian! Big guy!”

Cass slumped back against the bar in despair, torn between the sudden desire to bury her face in one arm and also straight-up _rip_ the beer tap off its stand _,_ launch herself across the pub, and throw herself between Rapunzel and the table of pirates before they could eviscerate her. Up on her tip-toes, Rapunzel had adopted what was clearly meant to be an intimidating posture, face scrunched up in a scowl and hands planted firmly on her hips just like - 

_Me,_ Cass thought with a mingled rush of horror and sudden, breathless, _violent_ affection for the girl. _Oh Sun above, she’s trying to be like me._

Thankfully, the thug Rapunzel had been addressing - a man built like a bald walrus with a hookhand and a variety of dubious-looking tools gleaming on his belt - seemed oblivious to her presence. He probably hadn’t even heard her voice over the clattering dice and raucous laughter shaking the table.

Beside her, Rider chuckled nervously. “Uh, Cassandra, we gotta do something, I mean we gotta do something _now_ , this is going to end badly and by badly I mean blondie splattered on a wall also how many bar fights has that girl been in wait-don't-answer-that- _Cassandra-we-gotta -_ "

“Excuse me!” Rapunzel called, loud enough to make Cass wince, catching a piece of hair in her hand and brandishing it above her head in the most non-threatening show of threat Cass had ever seen in her life. “I’m! I’m here to ask you - _tell_ you - to give me back my guard! Servant! Um. Whatever she is. Please. Give her back!”

The pirates ignored her. And this time, the hookhanded thug actually leaned _away_ from her to glug his ale, some of the amber liquid dribbling down his chin.

Rapunzel drew in a slow, deep breath - and raised her arm. 

“Raps, _no!_ ”

The piece of hair shot out from her hand like a lasso, snagged one of the branches protruding from the ceiling, pulled it back with a _creak_ of protesting wood - and let it fly. The branch smacked the man clean on the top of his shiny bald head with a _thunk_ that made Rider’s whole body flinch and Cass swear softly. 

“LET HER GO!” Rapunzel commanded, in a voice unlike anything Cass had heard from her before, fierce and pure and carrying across the tables with the same authority Lady Caine herself had wielded only minutes ago. Cass gaped.

For the second time since they’d set foot in the Duckling, the entire pub ground to a standstill.

All heads turned. But this time, there was no malice in their looks. More...idle curiosity. Marveling at this small, delicate flower of a girl who had just transformed into a queen before their very eyes and _commanded_ a table of pirates.

Cass watched, transfixed.

_Sun above, she's got guts._

“Okay,” Rapunzel gasped, dropping her arm and swinging her hair back over her shoulders, “I don't know where I am, and I need Cassandra to take me to see the lanterns because I've been _dreaming_ about them my entire life!”

She drew out the word in a half-sigh, half- _plea_ , sweeping her hands up to her heart in a gesture that would have looked hokey on anyone else, but this was Rapunzel, and everything about her breathed sincerity.

“Please! _Find your humanity!_ Haven't any of you ever had a dream?”

Silence.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Rapunzel blazed like the sun, all of her fierceness and sweetness rolled into one glorious flame that matched the (sudden, _wild_ ) heat in Cass's stomach. Wow. Oh wow. _Here_ was side to the girl she'd never expected, not in a million years. Cass wet her lips. That was - _she_ was - yeah. She couldn't remember the last time anyone (let alone a _girl_ ) had swooped in to defend her like this _._

It ought to irk her. It ought to wound her pride. It _ought_ to.

...The heat in her stomach evidently disagreed.

Cass blinked slowly. She looked from face to face, each wearing identical masks of total bewilderment (and, in some cases, outright awe). And in spite of herself, she felt a swoop of pride. 

_Yeah. You tell 'em, Raps._

And then the hookhanded-pirate rose slowly, ominously to his feet, towering over Rapunzel like a bear facing down a kitten - and Cass jerked back to reality with a yell.

" _Raps!_ " 

She tore at her handcuffs. The pirate drew an axe from his back that glinted in the candlelight, and Rapunzel gasped, staggering backwards into the nearest barrel, fumbling for her frying pan, as the pirate leaned in -

“I had a dream, once,” the hookhanded-man intoned solemnly, addressing the middle distance above Rapunzel’s head.

_...Say what, now?_

Unconsciously, Cass swung her head around to face Eugene, and saw her own bafflement reflected back at her in his mangled features.

“Y-you...you d-did?” Rapunzel stammered, still slumped against the barrel. Even her _hair_ quivered with the force of her trembling. 

The pirate nodded balefully.

“Yeah. Been a long time, though. My dream...hmm. Wanted to be a concert pianist. Always knew it was dumb. Never gonna happen for a guy like me.”

Rapunzel peeped at him over her frying pan. “O-oh. Um. What - what do you mean, a guy like you?”

“You know,” the man grunted, the axe swinging forlornly by his side, forgotten. “Malicious. Mean. Scary. Bad temper. The whole package, y’know? Knew they’d take one look at my hook and turn me away at the door.”

“Oh no, I don’t believe that,” Rapunzel said kindly, reaching out a hand towards him - Cass lurched forward in her cuffs at the same moment Rider did, but the pirate seemed too lost in his own melancholy to even notice Rapunzel giving his hook a gentle, comforting squeeze. “Why shouldn't your hook be allowed to make wonderful music along with the rest of you? I'm sure you play just beautifully!"

The thug shrugged his massive shoulders, looking bashful, and Rapunzel's face seemed to _melt_ at the sight. 

“ _Anyone_ can have a dream - the important thing is not to give up on it!” she smiled, pushing herself upright again from the barrel and gesturing eagerly to the spindly piano in the corner that looked as though it had been sinking into the stage for at least a century. “Isn’t that a piano, over there? I’ve never seen one in person before!”

“Yeah. ‘S mine.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Rapunzel said, with feeling. “It looks complicated. So many keys to remember! You must have practiced for years to learn how to play it, mister - mister, um -”

“Hookhand. Y'know. 'Cause of the hook.”

"Heh! Guess I won't have any trouble remembering that, will I?" Rapunzel giggled, and the man's lips twitched into a jerky, crooked sort of smile, revealing yellowing teeth. “I’m Rapunzel. It’s so nice to meet you! Well, I think your piano looks very well-loved, Mr. Hookhand. I wonder what it sounds like? I’d love to hear you play it for me!”

The thug’s face brightened hopefully, giving his beefy features a softer, friendlier look, and in spite of herself, Cass felt a little of the tension ease from her body. She knew a pacified enemy when she saw one. Rapunzel was going to have this guy kissing her skirt if she carried on like this.

“Really?” Hookhand grunted, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously with the handle of his axe. 

“Oh yes, I love music!” Rapunzel gushed, looping an arm through his and tugging him up onto the stage in much the same way she’d been tugging Cass around all day. “I sing for my Mother all the time, you know...”

“...So, uh, Cass- _an_ -dra?” Rider’s voice mumbled faintly beside her. “Help a guy out, here. Mind telling me _what in the name of all that is sane and normal_ is going on right now?” 

“Raps is giving us a crash course in soft power tactics,” Cass muttered, shaking her head in wonder. 

_Let’s just pray she keeps it up long enough for me to get out of these cuffs._

Up on the stage, Rapunzel was now perched on the piano stool beside Hookfoot, clapping along merrily as he bashed out a jaunty, off-key tune. The rest of the thugs milled about, tapping their feet and clinking tankards in time to the music, but making no move to stop the pair. Most of them were already _smiling,_ though expressions looked as odd and unnatural on their faces as a servant’s bonnet always looked on Cass. Even as she watched, another thug with a large, blotchy nose shuffled forward and tapped Rapunzel on the shoulder, tugging his helmet off respectfully - _just like they did for Caine_ \- before addressing her. 

“Uh, I - _I’ve_ got a dream too, Miss - uh - Rapunzel.”

“You have?” Rapunzel cried in delight, her hair swirling about her as she spun on the piano stool to face him, and the man nodded shyly.

“Me too!” called another man, shouldering his way forward through the crowd, and Cass had the sudden, absurd image of a group of little boys at a birthday party falling over each other for a piece of cake. “And Tor - he wants to quit this whole gig, you know, start fresh and open a florist in Old Corona.”

“I _love_ flowers! I hope you open your shop, Tor. I'm sure it would be _much_ nicer than being a ruffian. Oh, will you sell minne? It’s this herb Mother puts in our soups, it’s got the prettiest fluffy blue petals, I like to put them in my hair sometimes when Mother’s cooking...”

“Attila - hey buddy, you got any of those cupcakes left?”

“Ooo. I’ve never had a cupcake before! Aww look _,_ the cherries are like mini hats! Mm- _hmand_ -they're delicious too. You obviously have a real talent, Attila. Oh, I know! Why don't you give up doing, um, the things you do with that... _very_ spiky club of yours - and open a bakery instead?" 

“Bruiser knits the thickest socks in the Seven Kingdoms, and he’ll teach you how to get the blood out of the wool as well.”

“That’s...handy! Mmm, this is so soft and comfy, Bruiser. I like knitting too, but you’re obviously a master. I could go to sleep wearing these.”

“- Fang’s doing a puppet show in an hour -”

“Puppets are my favourite! I make them out of paper mache!”

“- Rapunzel, over here, Vlad’ll show you his ceramic unicorns -!”

A shoulder nudged her side, and Cassandra jerked out of her trance.

“Amazing, isn’t she?” Rider chuckled, too close for comfort, and Cass _shoved_ her shoulder back against his, sending him tumbling sideways onto the grimy floor. 

“What? She is!” He had a stupid, dopey, _besotted_ look lifting up the good side of his face. The other side drooped in a grotesque mask of green-tinged stitches. Cass looked away quickly. “Never met anyone like her. And here's the craziest part - I don't think she'd ever even _heard_ of Flynn Rider!”

“Perish the thought.” Strange, the way he phrased it. As though Flynn Rider was a separate entity from himself altogether, rather than his own name.

“She’s one of a kind. Not to mention, _the_ most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and uh, let me tell you” - he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Cass slammed her jaw together with enough force to break a tooth - “Flynn Rider has sampled a _lot_ of beautiful girls in his time.”

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit.”

“Eh,” he smirked, eyeing her. “You’re just jealous.”

Cass shot him a filthy look, her stomach turning over. (Was she that obvious?) “What, of being a bloviating moron with only half a face?”

Rider’s smirk vanished as quickly as it had come. “Okay, can we drop the face thing already, it’s getting old.”

“Old? Ha! It’s been a _day_ , Rider. Better get used to it. Last time I checked, there _is_ no cure for Kai venom scarring.”

“...Blondie said she could heal me,” he muttered, sounding like he only half-believed the words himself. Cass scoffed.

“ _Blondie_ clearly doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Oh yeah? How’d _you_ heal up so freakishly fast then?”

_Good question._

“A really good salve,” Cass said in the most monotone voice she could muster, repeating Rapunzel’s words from the tower.

...But. He had a point though. _Did_ Raps harbour some kind of miraculous healing power in those beautiful, delicate fingers of hers? If nothing else, it would explain why her foremost instinct upon meeting a hunky guy in a sleazy pub was to _offer him medical help_. After all, Corona had the finest physicians in the Seven Kingdoms. Was it so impossible that Raps or her mother had discovered a cure for Kai venom?

 _Maybe I can commission her for a few other miracles,_ Cass thought dryly. Perhaps a remedy to force stubborn captains to see your abilities first, and your gender second. Or a Saporian-style memory potion, to prise open the door in her mind that had slammed shut when Dad adopted her.

 _That_ would be something, wouldn't it? She’d spent the past eighteen years since trying and failing to wrench that door back open, locked in a constant battle with her own consciousness. Sometimes, she forced it open a crack - usually during nightmares, or that weird, uncanny time between night and dawn - but it never yielded much.

A cottage full of mirrors. A music box playing her to sleep. Hazelnut soup burning her mouth. 

And a smell, _always_ the same smell, cloying and sickly on her tongue, like berries rotting in the sun...

Dad said it was for the best. Dad said her mind had repressed the memories for a reason. Dad changed the subject loudly and pointedly if she ever pushed the topic. But that was typical Dad. And Cass had always suspected, if only she could find the right remedy, the right _jolt_ -

“Cassandra!”

Cass snapped her head up, just in time to see Rapunzel dancing towards her. Her face was glowing, her cheeks flushed a deep, distracting shade of pink from dancing to the piano. 

...So distracting, in fact, that it took Cass a second to realise she was waving a tiny, silver something in front of her nose that looked suspiciously like -

_No way._

“Ulf gave me the key!” Rapunzel beamed, practically _dancing_ from foot to foot with glee. "I've come to save you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You know [that scene in Pascal's Story](https://youtu.be/nLYunNtCDzE?list=PLbLWnSe1C6wazhptfhhwIOqzKv9Ff7uh1&t=103) when Raps behaves like a fierce puppy for a hot second and the camera holds on Cass so we can appreciate just how awed, speechless and utterly besotted she is? ...That. That moment. Is this chapter. In a nutshell.
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	11. Narrow Escape

* * *

> _“Maybe it’s time for you all to just shake hands and get along...”_
> 
> _\- Rapunzel, Day Of The Animals, S3 Ep08_

* * *

Cass couldn’t seem to remember how to speak.

“... _How_ ,” she croaked weakly, after a few seconds of struggling.

Rapunzel giggled, seemingly oblivious to the _monumental_ accomplishment dangling cheerfully from her little finger. “I asked nicely, and he gave it to me! Wasn't that kind?” 

Cass didn't answer. _Couldn't_ answer. She gazed up at Rapunzel with a stupid, woozy sort of grin drifting across her own lips, and when Rapunzel giggled again, she watched the laughter ripple through her and crease the dainty freckles on her cheeks and _oh Sun above I want to scoop her up in my arms and_ -

_Stop._

_You stop that right now._

_You've been down this road before, you know where it leads._

_Stop._

In life, there were very few things that could make Cass drop her guard. Catch her unawares. Take all those layers and layers of control she kept wrapped around her emotions and strip them away like bark from a tree.

As a general rule, she kept her feelings on a pretty tight leash - something she’d picked up from Dad as a teenager, watching how he behaved around his men. Composed. Guarded. Playing things close to his vest. She liked that; she liked the security it gave him. She wanted that security too. And now, years later, she was _just_ as good at it as Dad had ever been.

After all - better to guard your emotions than let others use them against you, right?

(...And that. _That_ was the clincher, right there. Guarding yourself, guarding certain - _particular_ feelings - before they got you into trouble. She'd learned that lesson the hard way as a reckless fifteen-year-old battling her second, equally hopeless crush.

This time, it had been the curly-haired gardener’s daughter, who always seemed to be trimming the same rosebush every time Cass ran her morning laps around the gardens. At some point, they'd struck up shy, fumbling conversation, and then Cass had picked a rose and tucked it into the girl’s curls (the memory made her want to bury her face in a pillow, but at the time, she’d thought herself _quite_ suave), and the girl had ducked her head coyly and suggested something that had made Cass promptly trip backwards _into_ the stupid rosebush like the suave teenager that she was.

That was how the gardener came to find them in the greenhouse, holding hands and pecking each other shyly on the lips between giggles - and everything had shattered.

Dad had been oblivious to the whole incident. Afterwards, she'd asked him, oh-so-casually over dinner, what had happened to the gardener’s daughter, careful to frame the question in the tone of _concerned friend_ , and not _lovesick teenager_. Gently, he'd explained that her father had sent her to live with an aunt in Quintonia. Then he’d stared at her a long moment, whilst she hid her tears in her hazelnut soup, and spent the rest of the week talking loudly about how he’d _always disliked that gardener fellow_ and _wasn’t it about time Cass had a new sword..._

In his own awkward way, he'd comforted her. It was better than pity, at least.)

Still. The whole incident had taught her a valuable lesson. No, a _priceless_ one. It showed her where her greatest weakness lay, a weakness that made her do absurd, dangerous things that were never worth the pain they caused, a weakness she'd been desperately _stamping out_ ever since-

\- And now, a girl with seventy-feet of blonde hair (and the disconcerting ability to drive her up the wall one moment, and reduce her to to a pile of gooey mush the next) had awakened it.

_Fight it down. Push it away. Don't even think about it._

Cass shook her head, forcing herself back to the present. Rapunzel had hopped over her outstretched legs like a gazelle, and was now stretching up on her toes to unlock her cuffs.

“You have to come see, Cassandra, Ulf's doing something called _mime_ , it’s amazing, it’s like he’s living in an invisible world that only he can see -”

“Great, that’s great, Raps,” Cass muttered, shaking the cuffs from her wrists and vaulting to her feet. “Now, let's grab Rider and _run_ before Caine -”

“Kai venom didn’t damage my _hearing_ , you know,” Rider called from behind them. 

“No, no, you have to come sing!” Rapunzel cried, tucking the key into the waistband of her skirt and tugging eagerly at Cass’s hand. Her flushed face shone with oblivious, giddy excitement. “Come on, I want you to meet everyone. It’ll only take a minute. It’s okay, my friends will protect -”

“- _Friends?_ ” Cass spluttered, digging her heels into the floor. “Raps, they’re a bunch of criminals! Believe me, they’ll turn on you as soon as Caine walks back through that door!”

Rapunzel opened her mouth - and then closed it, giving Cass a distinctly reproachful look.

“There’s more to them than that, Cass,” she said, very seriously. “They’re - _sweet_ , and funny, and talented. And they want me to live my dream just as much as they want to live theirs! Most of them don’t even _want_ to be criminals!”

_Oh, that’s rich._

“...Funny,” Cass glared. "Didn’t seem to mind much when Caine had us cornered and there was _gold_ up for grabs, did they?”

“Well, instead of expecting the worst of them, maybe we should try and draw out the best, and that will help them to -”

“ _Listen_ , Miss-Grew-Up-Alone-In-A-Tower,” Cass whispered fiercely, seizing her elbow. “That’s not how the real world works. I’ve watched Dad fight their kind my entire life, and trust me, _we can’t trust them_. Leopards don’t change their spots, Raps.”

“Leopards?” Rapunzel stared wildly around the pub.

“It’s a turn of phrase!” Cass hissed. “It means criminals don’t magically transform into good, law-abiding citizens just because they’re _nice_ to you for a whopping ten minutes -”

“What about you, Captain’s daughter,” boomed a voice so close to Cass’s ear that she almost yanked Rapunzel’s arm clean off in her haste to draw her sword - 

\- Which she didn’t have, of course, because Caine had taken it off her, along with her daggers too.

_Damn that pirate a thousand times over._

Cass turned. Hookhand was bearing down on her like a small, balding mountain with a mustache. The reek of sweat made her nose burn. One sausage-like finger prodded accusingly at her chest. 

“What’s _your_ dream?” he grunted, with the air of someone asking a particularly irksome child to give them one good reason they _didn’t_ deserve to be sent to their room with no dinner. Cass bristled indignantly. 

Behind him, the rest of the goons set down their tankards and slouched forward on their stools, their mangled faces ranging in expression from cold dislike to mild curiosity. Even the bartender put his rag down, and behind him, a pirate with wild black curls craned his (no, _her,_ Cass realised with a jolt of surprise, she could see the woman’s crimson gown beneath its cloak) head through the window, as though to listen better.

Their gazes met, over Rapunzel’s shoulder, and Cass stared into her own eyes.

_...Wait, wh -_

_I know you._

_\- I don’t know you._

_How do I know you?_

_Who -_

“Hey, lady! I asked you a question! You gotta tell us your dream, them’s the rules!”

Cass gasped down a breath. Blinked. _Stared_ at the gap in the window where the woman had been, a second ago, unless Cass had hallucinated her, though judging by the way her palms were sweating and her heart felt like it was about to claw its way out of her chest from sheer panic ( _panic?_ ), that was unlikely.

_My eyes. Those were my eyes. That woman had -_

What the hell had just happened?

Cass scrubbed a hand over her face. No time to waste on that particular _blip_ of reality right now. The thugs were still waiting, gawking at her like a bunch of kids at a puppet show.

Cass folded her arms.

“I don’t have time for dreams,” she said, truthfully. 

Silence. The thugs blinked dully at her ( _collective brain cell working overtime again_ , Cass thought with a smirk), their eyes sliding to Rapunzel, who was - oh _brother,_ from the look on her face, Cass might as well have said she didn’t have time for _breathing_ \- 

“Oh Cassandra,” she whispered, in the sort of hushed, sombre tone usually reserved for funerals. “Do...do you really mean that? No time for...I had no _idea_ -”

 _Sun above, we do_ not _have time for this conversation right now._

Cass caught her wrist, ducking to hiss in her ear so the thugs wouldn’t hear. “Less talking, more running. We’re going Raps. _Now_.” 

And before Rapunzel could protest, she swerved on her heel to -

\- To face the empty space beneath the bar where Rider had sat, only a moment ago, now occupied by nothing more than a swaying pair of unlocked handcuffs, and the lingering scent of cheap cologne.

“...Oops,” Rapunzel whispered, her voice muffled behind the hand she’d clapped over her mouth. Her other hand fluttered to her waistband. 

Her _empty_ waistband. 

“Oh. Wow. He _is_ good, isn’t he?”

And it was at that exact moment that the pub door burst open.

* * *

Rapunzel barely had time to register the split-second change in atmosphere around her - the music wheezing to a halt, her new friends’ identical stricken expressions, the tension that suddenly hung in the air like thick smoke - before Cassandra’s hands seized her around the waist, and vaulted them both over the top of the bar. 

They collapsed in a heap on the other side, limbs tangled in the dark. Rapunzel scraped hair out of her face, and wriggled her left arm free from Cassandra’s right leg. "Whoa, Cassandra -"

" _Shh!_ "

Footsteps thundered on the floorboards, making them tremble beneath their backs.

“Where is she?”

An older man’s voice bellowed out across the pub, and Rapunzel watched the colour drain from Cassandra’s face like paint washed clean off a canvass. Her lips moved in mute, horrified silence around a single word.

_Dad._

“I’m here, Cassandra! Don’t do anything foolish!” The Captain’s voice had a raw, flayed edge to it. Cassandra’s fingers dug into her waist. “Where is she? Bring her out! _Bring her out this instant!_ ”

“Oh poor man, he’s so frightened,” Rapunzel whispered. Cassandra’s lips were pressed together so tightly it was like looking at a wax sculpture with a thin line scratched where the mouth should be. “Cassandra, we should tell him you’re okay -”

Slender, gloved fingers clamped over her mouth, silencing her without words. It didn’t _hurt_ , but it wasn’t particularly pleasant either. Rapunzel frowned.

 _Why_ was Cassandra being like this? Why did they have to hide from her own father, of all people? He was the Captain of the Royal Guard, right? Surely once he realised Cassandra was safe, he’d help them fight the nasty pirate lady, the one they called Caine. Rapunzel’s eyes slid to Cassandra’s over the top of her hand, wide, _questioning_ -

“Psst.”

Cassandra stiffened. They glanced up in unison. Hookhand (one of her new friends, her _fourth_ friend, after Pascal and Cassandra and Rider-not-Eugene...though she wasn't quite sure about that last one anymore) was bent over the bar towards them. His eyes darted meaningfully in the direction of the mouldering wall behind them, and as Rapunzel watched, he reached out with his hook, locked it around a beer tap marked with a cheerful yellow duckling, and _pulled_.

The pulpy remains of the floorboards sunk into the ground, rotten wood crumbling into earth and squiggly white roots. Beneath, the mouth of a passageway yawned wide open. A distant, faintly audible _boom_ sent a few pebbles skittering down from the walls as the trapdoor settled into place.

Beside her, Cassandra let out a slow exhale of relief.

“Go,” grunted Hookhand. His big, muddy-brown eyes crinkled in a toothy grin as he leaned down towards her over the bar. “Live your dream.”

Cassandra rolled away from her without a word, crawling into the passage, but Rapunzel jumped to her feet and stretched up on tip-toes towards Hookhand, feeling as though she might burst with gratitude.

“Thanks for everything!” she whispered, pecking the man’s cheek - scratchy, but not unpleasant, and it felt like the _right_ thing to do, even if Cassandra did make a stifled noise of disgust behind her. Rapunzel shot her a reproachful look over her shoulder. 

_Why_ was she being so rude? Hookhand was her friend, whether Cassandra liked it or not! She was just - _determined_ to see the worst in everyone they met, for some reason, and they in turn seemed to bring out the worst in her. She’d been horrible to Eugene, digging at him about his face, a face _she’d_ been responsible for, and thief or no thief, surely there was no need for that sort of - of - _cruelty_ -

 _Maybe your precious Cassandra isn’t as perfect and heroic as you thought she was, flower. First she lies to you about being a guard, and now it turns out she'd rather cleave a man across the face than give him a fair trial? Mmm._ _Remember, she’s not like_ _you, dear. Cassandra has grown up Outside - in a cruel, selfish world full of horrors so beyond your understanding, you're starting to doubt some of them even exist!_

 _Think about it, dear. P_ _erhaps that world has...rubbed off on her._ _More than you want to admit._

Rapunzel bit her lip. Hard.

“Hey. You. Captain’s daughter.”

Hookhand’s voice brought Cassandra jerking to a halt, her lithe figure already half-cloaked in the darkness of the passage. She didn’t turn. Rapunzel hovered, her head swinging between the two. 

Then Hookhand stretched out his hook over the bar and leveled it solemnly at Cassandra’s back. Like a king, _charging_ her with something. Giving her orders.

“You say you got no time for dreams, huh? Hmph. Well. You make sure this girl gets _hers_ , okay. You make sure she gets it, if it’s the last thing you do. She’s somethin’ special.”

For a moment, Cassandra seemed to hesitate, her shoulder twitching as though she was about to round on him and make a retort - but then she simply marched off into the darkness. Rapunzel gave Hookhand a last half-grateful, half-apologetic smile - and followed. 

The echo of the Captain’s cries died away behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Next week...alone time for the girls in the tunnel! 
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	12. Tunnel Explosion

* * *

> _“You have no idea what this...means  
>  to me! You've got nothing to prove!” _
> 
> _\- Cassandra to Rapunzel, Challenge Of The Brave, S1 Ep04_

* * *

They walked in silence, side by side, shoulders bumping gently as Cassandra led them down the narrow, rocky passage. 

Rapunzel hitched her hair up over her shoulder, looping it around and around so it didn't trail on the ground. She touched a hand to her pendant (still safe, even _after_ dancing around a pub for half an hour, thank goodness!). Her toes sank into squelchy mud, and the walls glistened wetly in the glow of the lantern Cassandra had unhooked from the wall and now held aloft in front of them, lighting the way.

Rapunzel craned her neck back, counting the stalactites that hung from the ceiling like long, crooked, glistening fingers. She shivered in delight, pressing against Cassandra’s side. 

“Isn’t this amazing?” she whispered, clutching her arm. “A _real_ secret passage! Just like something out of a story! Ooo, I wonder what they use it for?”

Cassandra didn’t answer. Her face was twisted away, masked beneath a curtain of dark curls that melted into the shadows.

She might not be a real guard - but she was certainly _carrying_ herself like one right now, stiff and remote as a statue, refusing to give beneath Rapunzel’s touch.

“...Cassandra? Are you okay?”

The silence gaped between them like a chasm, horrible in its emptiness. They were close enough to bump hips with every step, the worn leather of Cassandra’s belt chafing against Rapunzel's skirt in a way that was becoming familiar, _comforting_ almost, and yet - Cassandra had never felt further away.

Rapunzel bit her lip, glancing to Pascal for help. He shook his head dubiously from side to side, holding up a tiny green claw and opening it, as if to let something fall. 

_Drop it._

Oh no, but she couldn’t do that. How could she, when Cassandra was clearly upset? Hurting, even? This wasn’t like with Fidella, this was worse, this was -

(Well. She had the horrible feeling this was about _her_.)

Ignoring Pascal’s quiet, warning croon, she tugged Cassandra’s sleeve.

“Are you angry with me about Eugene escaping? Because I let him steal the key? Is that it?” 

Cassandra _kicked_ at a rock, sending it ricocheting off the closest wall where it broke into two pieces. “Just leave it, Raps. It's fine.” 

“But it’s _not!_ ” Rapunzel cried, panic flaring in her chest as Cassandra jerked her arm out of reach, and her hands flailed in mid-air for a single, _horrible_ instant, before she latched onto Cassandra’s shoulder instead. “Is it your dad? Are you in trouble with him? Oh Cassandra, I know how you f -"

“I said leave it.”

“You ran away, didn't you. Just like me. Caine said -”

“ _Leave it_.”

“Is it because you’re pretending to be a guard, but you’re not, you’re actually just a servant? Is your dad going to send you to a conv -”

Cassandra rounded on her so fast that Rapunzel cut off with a gasp, almost falling into the nearest wall at the expression on her face.

In the cool darkness of the passage, Cassandra’s eyes flashed like sparks. Anger rolled off her in waves, her chest rising and falling in a broken, too-fast rhythm, like she’d been trying to hold something back and now it was exploding out of her at last.

“You want me to spell it out for you, _blondie?_ ” she said, her lip curling sarcastically around Eugene’s nickname, and Rapunzel flinched. “All right! _Yes_ , I ran away. _Yes_ , I'm in trouble. And yes, _ha, yes_ , I'm angry! Why? Because someone, _someone_ was so busy trying to make me bosom-buddies with a bunch of _criminal meatheads_ that she let Rider steal the key from _literally under our noses,_ destroying any hope I had of catching him before he skips town, and ensuring my chances of _not_ being packed off to a convent the second I set foot back in the palace are pretty much _second to none!_ "

By the end, she was shouting, and the whole passage seemed to shake with the force of her anger. Rapunzel opened her mouth, but no words came out. Hot tears burned in her throat.

...There was _so_ much more to this than she'd thought.

"If it weren't for you," Cassandra panted, "I’d have Rider in handcuffs by now, and the King himself probably awarding me a Sonne Medal by sundown. Hell, I’d have the crown too, if it weren't for -!"

Her hand made an odd, jerking movement towards the pendant at Rapunzel's throat, as though fighting the urge to rip it away. At her shoulder, Pascal let out an indignant _squeak,_ but Rapunzel pressed her lips together and shrank into the warm, comforting shelter of her hair, letting it cloak her shoulders. Guilt choked her.

“It's like - like you don't even _care_ ," Cassandra said with a short, bitter little laugh. “I told you, _I told you_ to wait at the bar in case we had to make a quick getaway, and what do you do? You dance off to flirt with the very criminal I’m hunting! Are you really _that_ obliviously naive?"

 _Yes,_ Mother crooned at her from inside, whilst Cassandra shouted from the out, and Rapunzel stifled a whimper. _Yes, and more. Gullible. Thoughtless. Ever so ditzy. Oh, and rather slow on the uptake sometimes, but she does try, bless her, she really does!_

 _(...Now dear, there's no need to cry. Mummy knows it’s not your fault. Mummy knows you can’t help yourself._ _Mummy knows - it's just who you_ are _, isn't it?)_

“...So there you have it, Rapunzel _,_ " Cassandra was saying, bleak now, almost _tired_. "Maybe spare a thought for me when you’re back in your cushy tower tomorrow, brushing your pretty hair, painting your pictures and reminiscing about your quaint trip to see the lanterns. Spare a thought for the woman who’s going to be scrubbing floors or withering away in a convent _for the rest of her useless life!_ ”

Silence, for a moment.

Cassandra was panting like she’d run a race, her cheeks a bright, furious scarlet. Her breath fogged the air between them. 

Rapunzel couldn’t move. She didn’t dare open her mouth in case she started crying. Stupid. She was so stupid. She was so selfish! Mother was always telling her off for crying at silly things, but this was surely the worst of them all.

Her friend was in so much pain, and it was her fault, and all she could do was _cry_ at her.

"...I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice tiny in the silence. "I-I didn't think. With Eugene. And then with the key, I just wanted everyone to get along, and - and - oh _Cassandra_ -”

She surged forward, opening her arms, convinced for a split-second that if only Cassandra would let her crush them both in a hug, it could somehow erase this whole awful _thing_ between them - but Cassandra ducked away, retreating to the other side of the passage. The lamplight swung with her, leaving Rapunzel in shadow.

Pascal’s tiny head nudged her cheek. He squeaked encouragingly. Rapunzel reached for him, letting him curl a comforting claw around her thumb.

“I-I _do_ care, Cassandra,” she whispered, inching into the lamplight again. “You know that. I just - I didn’t _know_. About your dad. And the convent. H-how -" She swallowed. Reached out, hand trembling. Touched Cassandra's shoulder, with the very tips of her fingers. " _How_ could I know. If you didn't tell me."

Cassandra's eyes snapped to hers. Her face was unreadable.

But Rapunzel could sense - _something_ , shifting beneath her remote gaze. The cogs of her brain whirring. Struggling.

“...That's...yeah." Her voice was so soft, it was almost as though she was speaking to herself. "Right. You still don’t have...the full picture."

Rapunzel nodded vigorously, opening her mouth to plead the obvious question - but Pascal laid a tiny claw on her lips, his big dark eyes imploring.

_Wait. Let her._

The silence seemed to last an age. 

“...That crown,” Cassandra began, haltingly, "that was - my first guard assignment. Ever. And it was - Raps, it was - _sixteen years,_ I’ve trained for that job. And then I get my chance at last, and Rider comes along and blows it all up in my face. _Sixteen years_ , and Dad had to fire me on my first day. It was a disgrace. _I_ was a -"

Her voice cracked, and the light shimmered around them as the lamp shook in her grasp. She grunted. Swallowed. 

"I was... _expressly_ forbidden from going after Rider. I disobeyed. That's it. That’s why I can’t go back, or face Dad. Not without that crown. Not without Rider in handcuffs.”

“Oh,” Rapunzel whispered. A strange sense of mingled horror and relief - yes, _relief_ \- was flooding over her in a heady rush. " _Oh_."

At last. At long last. All the puzzle pieces that made up the woman in front of her were slotting into place.

 _"That’s_ why you hate Eugene so much," she breathed.

“Mm.”

“He ruined... _everything_ for you.”

It all made sense. This wasn’t just protocol, this was _personal_. This wasn’t just about bringing Rider to justice, this was about revenge. And more than that. This was about Cassandra _earning back her life_. Buying her own redemption. 

... _Saving_ herself, from a fate even her own father wouldn't (or _couldn't_ ) save her from. 

_Oh Cassandra, Cassandra, Cassandra._

She wanted to hug her. She _ached_ to hug her. To throw herself across the horrible, gaping distance that had opened up between them, to jump up on her toes and fling her arms around Cassandra’s neck, to bury her face in the warm crook of her shoulder as she had before, to hold them together, to feel her curls tickle her cheek again and breathe in her metal-and-sweat scent and _know,_ beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Cassandra could feel how sorry she was, how much she _cared_ -

“We should keep moving.”

Rapunzel blinked. Cassandra had set off down the passage again, shoulders hunched, face turned away. 

“Look, this - this whole mess is on Rider, more than either of us,” she muttered, whilst Rapunzel broke into a little jog to catch up with her. “Clearly, he spotted you all alone at the bar and decided to try his luck whilst waiting for Caine's signal. _Typical._ "

"...What do you mean?"

“I _mean_ , it's not your fault you fell for his act and forgot all the rules,” Cassandra said, pausing by an odd sculpture on the wall, a collection of long, hard white rocks twisted into a human shape, with a sword sticking out of the chest. “Handsome guy giving you puppy eyes...I get it. Well -” One corner of her lips crooked upwards, a mirthless half-smile at some private joke. She wrenched the sword loose with a shower of dust and slid it into her scabbard. “No. I don’t. But I can imagine.”

Rapunzel hesitated.

Now, a tiny flame of indignance was fluttering in her chest again, just like it had back in the Duckling. Okay, so maybe Eugene had... _laid it on_ a bit, but it seemed unfair to assume every kind word he'd spoken to her came from a place of secret, nefarious intent.

Besides...it _had_ been Cassandra's idea to enter the Duckling in the first place. _That_ wasn't on Eugene. And...it wasn't on Rapunzel, either. Actually...actually, come to think of it...

Rapunzel chewed her lip, a little frown creasing her brow. She'd been so caught up in the great big _awfulness_ of Cassandra's pain, she hadn't stopped to consider...

Well. Cassandra hadn't exactly made the most sensible decisions either, had she?

"...Maybe it wasn't an act," she hedged. "Maybe Eugene was just being friendly."

"Uh-huh." Cassandra let out a short, derisive _snort_ of a sound. Like a very skeptical horse. “Believe me, Raps. Men like Rider only want one thing from girls like you.” 

Rapunzel frowned, thinking of Eugene slipping the matches into his doublet when he thought she wasn’t looking. “But I didn’t have any jewelry, or even a purse…”

“I’m talking about something a bit more intimate than your _purse._ ” 

Cassandra cast her a sideways glance, a glance that lingered just a beat too long, and Rapunzel felt an odd, creeping warmth rise up her neck.

 _I_ _ntimate,_ she’d said.

Oh. _Oh_.

Mother hadn’t told her everything about men, of course. But she’d told her enough, and Rapunzel had been piecing together the rest (with Pascal’s diligent help) ever since her twelfth birthday. 

Love - in all its strange, frightening, _fascinating_ colours and textures - was like a painting in her mind, something she added to with each passing year. A brushstroke here, a brushstroke there. Things that Mother let slip (rare, but always interesting), pictures in books (helpful), feelings that awoke in her own body (confusing). The painting sprawled and spiralled off in all directions with unanswered questions. 

Back in the Duckling, Eugene had made a splash of vibrant blue across the whole picture - but the colour was muted now, dulled by the realisation that this man had turned out to be both a trickster thief _and_ an enemy of Cassandra’s, no less.

(Did that make him _Rapunzel’s_ enemy too?)

“...I see,” Rapunzel whispered, thinking of chiseled smirks and a voice like butter murmuring _beautiful_ as he stroked her hair back over her shoulders. “I see.” 

Maybe that explained it. Maybe that explained everything. But -

Rapunzel chewed her lip, thinking of the pain in Eugene's eyes when she'd gawped at his face. The way his breath had hitched, beneath her touch. The way he'd laughed with his whole body, his whole _soul,_ and made that dark little alcove seem warm and cosy.

She shook her head forcefully, once, back and forth.

"He wasn't like that, Cassandra. _Really,_ he wasn't.”

"Hm," Cassandra grunted. She didn't sound convinced. "He didn't - _try_ anything? Anything that made you uncomfortable?"

“No, nothing at all! We just talked! It was nice. _He_ was...really, really nice. Actually, it was almost like -" She hesitated, a smile softening her lips at the memory. "- like we _had_ something. A connection. He was so -”

How to describe her encounter with Eugene. The way he made her feel utterly at ease in a way she’d never dreamed she could feel outside of her tower. The way he called her _sunshine_ and other cute things, as though they were the best of friends, or even something more…

It was only when Cassandra coughed pointedly into the silence that Rapunzel realised she was blushing.

“S-sorry,” she mumbled, trying not to grin so hard. “Lost in thought. I guess what I’m trying to say is, when I was with Eugene, I felt - I _felt_ -”

The slam of a door (a _trapdoor?_ ) made the sand tremble beneath their feet, and Pascal dived into Rapunzel’s sleeve with a squeak. 

“Uh, Cassandra?”

The ground was rumbling. Rapunzel could feel it beneath her bare feet, making her ankles tremble and quake.

And then light flared at the end of the tunnel, a sea of torches held aloft like a witchhunt, illuminating the golden helmets of what had to be the Coronian guard -

“ _Cassandra?_ ” Rapunzel cried, voice sliding up an octave in panic, but Cassandra had already seized her hand. 

“RUN!” she yelled.

Together, they fled down the belly of the tunnel.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know a lot of people had hopes for High Romantic Tension in this chapter, and I went and gave you angst instead. Forgive me? Don't worry, there's plenty of that coming in a few chapters :))))
> 
> More next weekend. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


	13. Risking The Dam

* * *

> _“_ _Well, I’m not being patient anymore.”_
> 
> _\- Cassandra, Rapunzel’s Return, S3 Ep01_

* * *

Daylight, winking up ahead. 

“Almost there, Raps,” Cassandra was panting in her ear, “just a bit further, keep moving, we’re -”

And then the mouth of the tunnel gaped open, and spat them out in a flurry of hot sand and skittering pebbles and blinding white sun.

“Oh wow!” Rapunzel gasped, sagging against Cassandra’s shoulder and clutching a stitch in her side. “Look at the view from up here!”

A great canyon (it _had_ to be a canyon, right?) fell away before them, scooped out of the landscape as though by some unseen giant’s hand and baked golden-brown by the sun. The sheer walls were riddled with the gaping mouths of mineshafts. Waves of blistering heat fanned against her face, and Rapunzel tottered on the cliffside, shielding her eyes from the sting of it. Fine, hot sand stuck to her aching feet. Jackdaws circled above, their cries grating the air and their wings casting skeletal shadows down onto the rock. 

What a desolate place. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen! If only they weren’t being chased and she had her -

“- Wishing you had your paints, huh?” Cassandra shouldered past her with an affectionate nudge and jogged to the cliffside, where a rickety rope ladder was set into the stone. 

“Heh! How could you tell?”

“A hunch.” Cassandra shot her a wry grin, steadying the ladder. “You had that same look back in the woods. Kind of manic, but _focussed,_ like you were trying to commit it all to memory for later reference. And you do this thing with your fingers, sort of twitching, like I do when I want a sword - _what_ , Raps?”

“Nothing!” Rapunzel squeaked, though it didn’t feel like nothing. It felt as though a warm, sweet swell of emotion was brimming up inside her and threatening to overflow at any moment. 

After all this time...had Cassandra really been watching her every bit as closely as _Rapunzel_ had been watching _her?_

The knowledge made her want to leap into Cassandra’s surprised arms and squeeze her until neither of them could breathe - but now probably wasn’t the best time. 

“...Just wait till we’re back at my tower,” she beamed, taking the Cassandra’s outstretched arm and easing her foot down onto the first rung of the rope ladder. “I’m going to paint the most beautiful mural of you! I have this lovely silky grey-green colour that would be just perfect for your eyes, it’s the same one I use for Moth -”

Cassandra let out a strangled yelp, seizing her around the waist. For a single, heart-stopping moment, Rapunzel’s toes slipped from the rung, scrabbling frantically at the sandy cliffside - before Cassandra hauled her safely back up again. 

“Wh - what is it, what’s wrong -?”

“The ladder.” Cassandra’s face was the colour of ash, her arm thrust in front of Rapunzel to form a protective barrier, just like she had back in the Duckling. “Someone’s - _tampered_ with it. Look there, look at the rope smoldering! What the hell, what kind of crazy idiot...”

Heart still thudding, Rapunzel followed the line of her finger, peering over the edge of the cliff. The ladder fell away below them, swaying gently, innocuously in the breeze. But halfway down, it turned a funny shade of - 

_Uh oh._

Black. Charred black, and still glistening with sparks. The rest of the ladder had been burned away altogether. Clearly, whoever had been last to climb down did _not_ want to be followed. Even as she watched, a few curls of singed rope floated away on the breeze, down to the vast, glaring expanse of the canyon below, deserted except for a single blue-and-white figure loping across the sand...

Rapunzel blinked. Stared. Blinked again, just to make sure.

_The matches. Of course, he'd stolen the matches._

Oh, he was _so_ smart.

“Um. Cassandra.”

“What?”

She hesitated, watching Eugene leap into a three-wheeled minecart and crouch there, shoulders heaving, still and watchful as a fox hiding from a hunter.

What would Corona - _do_ with Eugene exactly, once Cassandra had him captured? Lock him up in a dungeon? Put him in the stockades? Or - something worse. Something unthinkable. Mother _had_ always said justice was ruthless and uncompromising in the Outside World...

...Then again. Mother hadn’t been right about everything so far, had she?

As it turned out, ruffians and thugs might seem dangerous, but they could actually be very friendly - and musical! - once you got to know them a bit. Hmm, she hadn’t met any cannibals yet though, or men on stilts. Perhaps Cassandra’s father had already locked them all up? But - why would Mother warn her so emphatically about things that weren’t even a threat anymore?

And come to think of it, it wasn’t just the people-shaped dangers that seemed to be in...weirdly short supply. Like, what about all the quicksand and riptides and molten lava? And didn't you need volcanos, for there to be lava? Had she somehow been missing _all the volcanos?_ Was that a stupid question?

Maybe. Probably. Mother was _so_ much older and cleverer than her. Mother would probably pinch her cheeks and call her _silly flower_ , if she could hear her now. 

...Still. The contradictions sat uneasily in her mind, scattered pieces of a puzzle she couldn’t fit together.

But now. Back to Eugene. The hardest puzzle piece of all, who refused to fit, no matter which way she turned him. A square peg. A contradiction. Eugene, who was charming and funny and gentle -

And also happened to have ruined Cassandra’s entire life.

_I have to do this for her._

Rapunzel drew in a slow, deep breath. 

“...Don’t freak out,” she murmured, lifting an arm tentatively - _guiltily_ \- over Cassandra’s protective barrier to point across the canyon. “But I think you might be getting that Sonne Medal after all.” 

Cassandra’s entire body went ramrod-straight.

Then she breathed a word that Rapunzel had only heard Mother say once, _years_ ago, and forbade her from ever repeating. Pascal let out an indignant _squeak_ of disapproval and clapped a tiny claw over Rapunzel's ear, growling softly. 

“I have to get down there.” Cassandra was utterly still by Rapunzel’s side, but her eyes were wild. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the tunnel, rumbling with the the Guard's approaching footsteps. “I have to get down _now -_ ”

She lurched forward as though someone had pushed her, kicking up a shower of sand and careening towards the edge of the cliff.

"Cassandra!” Rapunzel cried, lunging forward to seize her around the middle. “What are you doing! You can’t climb down a canyon with your bare hands _-_ ”

Cassandra wasn’t listening. From the look on her face, that was _exactly_ what she intended to do. Every muscle in her body was taut, straining against Rapunzel's grip. Her eyes darted frantically between Rider and the tunnel behind them, boots skimming the edge of the cliff. 

Rapunzel dug her heels into the burning sand, and _clung_.

“Wait...Cassandra... _wait!_ ” she groaned. “Maybe we could...slide down the water troughs! Or try to find a...rope -!”

Cassandra’s neck whipped around, and Rapunzel felt her voice die in her throat.

“I don’t need a rope,” Cassandra breathed.

And Rapunzel had the strange notion that the woman wasn’t looking quite - _at_ her anymore, though neither of them had moved. Her eyes were oddly glassy. Gazing _through_ her, to a different end. There was something familiar about that look. Like a poacher looking at a rabbit and seeing only its pelt. Like -

Oh. Right. Like Mother looked at her, when it was time to sing. 

“...A-ah," Rapunzel said, her smile faltering, though she wasn't entirely sure why. "You want to use my hair. Okay. Sure! That’ll be _way_ safer -”

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Cassandra was diving towards her. Seizing the hair from her shoulder. Quick as a flash, she sent a loop _whistling_ up through the air to snag one of the rickety wooden beams protruding from the dam wall.

Rapunzel felt her smile slide from her face.

“Um, Cassandra, we need something stronger to -”

“No time. It’ll be fine.” Cassandra veered back towards the cliff, hair wound around her wrists. “Quick, lower me down."

"But -"

_Crash._

The sound of splintering wood and pinging nails echoed across the canyon. Rapunzel stifled a cry. One of the boarded-up mine shafts below had exploded outwards, and two hulking shapes emerged from its shadowy depths like beasts from a lair. The sun caught the short-cropped buzz of their ginger hair as their heads swung back and forth, scanning the canyon as though looking for something or - _someone_ -

Cassandra hissed like a panicked cat. 

“ _Now,_ Rapunzel! Please!”

Above them, the beam groaned like an old tree. Riverlets of water streamed down its sides, soaking her hair a rich, dark gold. Rapunzel gulped.

"...Cassandra," she whispered, soft, _scared_. "That’s not going to hold for long -"

"We don’t need long!” But Cassandra wasn't looking at the beam, she was looking at _Rider_ , her face frantic. Beats of sweat glistened on her brow. “We _don’t have time_ for this, Raps!" 

"But what if it snaps and you fall and the whole dam starts _-_ ”

Cassandra rounded on her, cold and blazing all at once. 

“Do you even _want_ me to catch him, anymore!” she burst out, a terrible catch in her voice. “Is that it? Is that what this is about? Your little _puppy crush_ -”

“ _No!_ It’s nothing to do with -”

"You're the reason I lost him before.” Cassandra’s voice held no cruelty, no emotion at all now. Just a simple statement of fact. Somehow, that made it all the worst. “You’re _not_ going to make me lose him again.”

For a single beat, there was nothing but aching heat and sand and silence between them. Something flickered in Cassandra’s gaze. Something conscious, _guilty._ But a second later it was gone, and she reeled away to face the canyon once more.

Rapunzel opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Guilt clogged up her throat like wads of wet tissue.

Beneath their feet, fine white sand shimmered beneath the pounding of heavy boots, fast approaching. 

_She’s right. I won’t._

“...Tie it under your heel,” Rapunzel whispered, trying to hide the tremor in her voice as she stepped forward. With quick, practiced movements, she snagged a loop of hair under Cassandra's boot, so she could stand upright as Rapunzel lowered her down. "That's how - how Mother does it."

Cassandra didn't meet her gaze - but her shoulders sagged with relief, as Rapunzel folded her fingers back around the end of her hair.

" _Thanks_ , Raps," she whispered, and Rapunzel forced a tiny, strained smile. 

"Go get him, okay?"

Cassandra didn't hesitate. She stepped backwards over the cliff without another word, eyes shining with the kind of absolute trust would have made Rapunzel weep for joy, any other time. Instead, it just made her stomach swim. Swallowing hard, she braced her back against the dam - and began to let down her hair, hand over hand, as swiftly as she dared. Cassandra's eyes dropped beneath the edge of the cliff, and she vanished from sight. 

Pascal whined against her cheek.

“I-it’s okay, Pascal,” Rapunzel whispered, using her shoulder and chin to cuddle him close. She didn't dare look upwards, but her fingers trembled around the rope of hair. “S-see? It's holding. It's fine! She'll be down in a minute. We got this, little buddy. We got this...” 

Above them, the beam let out a deep, shuddering _crack_.

* * *

Cass was running almost before her feet hit the ground.

_You shouldn’t have done that._

Wet sand splattered her legs. Blackflies buzzed past her ears. The sun glared down her neck. _Judging_ her. 

_You shouldn’t have done that._

She wouldn’t look back.

She _couldn’t_ look back.

Not to check Rapunzel was okay, not to watch the Royal Guard stumble out of the tunnel, not to check if the Stabbingtons had spotted her yet.

Cass ripped her stolen sword from its scabbard with one hand and scraped back her sweaty curls with the other, never breaking pace.

_You shouldn’t have done that._

Her heart clenched uneasily. She thought of wide, trusting emerald eyes shining with fear as Cass tugged at her hair. 

_She’ll be fine. She will._

_That dam’s stood there for twenty years._

_Raps was just being paranoid. She’s been in the real world for about eight hours, she hasn’t got a clue._

_(I can't lose him again.)_

_That’s it. That’s all._

Her lungs burned, her head pounding from the heat. But she was close now. Leaping over bits of broken track. The three-wheeled mine cart loomed up ahead, bigger by the second. As Cass loped towards it, she saw Rider’s head peek over the top like a kid playing hide-and-seek, eyes bulging in realisation -

_CLANG._

The pommel of her sword missed Rider by inches - and _slammed_ into the rusted edge of the minecart instead. Pain shrieked up her shoulder and she bit down a yell. Rider threw himself over the edge of the cart, head over heels. He landed with a _splash_ in the sandy stream that wound through the track, limbs splayed out like a scarecrow cut from its post. 

“- _ah-ah-ah,_ okay, okay, I surrender!” he spluttered, thrashing in the water, throwing up his arms. “You win, dragon lady, you win. Keep your hair on. I’ll come... _quietly_ -”

A fistful of wet sand flew at her. Cass spluttered. Staggered. Eyes stinging, she saw Rider vaulting to his feet with a _ha!_ of triumph - which became a gurgle of pain, as Cass kicked him in the stomach. Rider crumpled. Down in the water again, he barely had time to roll to his knees -

\- Before her sword touched his throat.

“Just where,” Cass gasped, shaking with exertion, sweat streaming down her back, but victory humming, _soaring_ in her chest like comet blazing across the sky, “do you think you’re going, _thief_.”

Silence, for a moment. The stream gurgled and splashed, finding its own bubbling path around Rider’s body. Cass spat out sand, tasting salt. Her heart galloped in fits and starts, nervous, on edge, like a frightened horse. 

...Was this it? Was this really it? Had she finally caught him, at last? 

Rider lay splayed out before her, half-buried in the sand, panting softly. Strange, how small he looked, all of a sudden. His clothes were sodden, his hair plastered to his cheeks. And his eyes were fixed on her sword with a look of such total, abject _bewilderment_ that Cass almost laughed.

For the first time ever, he looked...oddly pathetic.

_Defeated._

Something unfurled in Cassandra’s chest like the wings of a great bird. The sense of a huge weight, being lifted at last. Not the sumptuous triumph she’d expected, but - softer somehow. Lighter. She swayed on the spot, half-dizzy with it.

... _Relief_ , she realised, her breath rushing out in a half-gasp, half-laugh. Oh, Sun above, she was _free_. She was in the clear! Hell, she was practically a guard again!

And now, she really was laughing - breathless, slightly hysterical laughter, but laughter all the same, and Rider was looking at her like she’d lost her mind, but _who gave a damn._ About Rider, about Caine, about any of it! In the glow of her victory, her mistakes seemed - oddly trivial, all of a sudden. Floating away on the breeze like bits of paper. 

After all, when she threw Rider down at Dad’s feet, nobody would -

\- _Dad._ Dad! He was coming, he'd be here any minute! Cass swung her head around, eagerly scanning the rim of the cliff. This was it. This was really it! She could picture it all, now. A golden helmet, a bushy mustache, Maximus's mane billowing in the wind. Dad would stare in shock at first, and then she'd grin and salute him and call out _I think I'll be needing that armour back, sir_ \- and then watch, _watch_ as his face melted into pride so fierce she could feel it like a physical heat.

Her throat tightened. Her eyes pricked.

 _Come on, Dad,_ she thought, a terrible ache inside her now, _willing_ him to appear. _Come out and see what your daughter has achieved. Come out and be proud of m -_

\- Rider blew a bit of wet hair loudly out of his face, shattering the moment with about as much tact as a clown at a funeral.

“So. Cass- _an_ -dra. Execution _à la Corona_. What's next on the schedule? Am I gonna get one of those _airquotes-'_ speedy trials'- _airquotes_ the King's such a fan of?"

Cass swung back to face him, summoning her most withering look. “Give me a break, Rider. Corona's trials are perfectly fair."

"Hoo _-_ boy. Hey, do me a favour and say that in front of Lady Caine next time you guys cross swords, okay? Dunno if you picked up on her subtle hints, but she's got a bit of a bee in her bonnet about Corona's justice system. Well. Not a bee. More of a hornet, like one of those _huge_ angry killer hornets that eats bees for breakfast. Oh, just to be clear, you're the bee getting eaten in this...this...metaphor...

He trailed off, his eyes sliding past the tip of her sword, past her shoulder, staring at something behind her. The colour drained from his face.

Cass sneered.

“Nice try, Rider." She dug her boot into his chest, pressing him down into the stream with a _squelch_ , but he kept the act up, his jaw slack with horror. “Quite the performance there. But I won’t be so easily distrac -”

“Cassandra.”

She blinked. Was that the first time he’d ever said her name right?

“Cassandra, _the dam_.”

A deep groaning sound, like the trunk of a great tree being felled, rumbled across the canyon. Something cold slid down Cassandra’s spine. 

_The dam._

“Rapunzel,” she breathed, at the same moment Rider did.

She turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ...So, you know how I said this story would explore Cass learning from some serious mistakes so she could grow as a person? Yeah. That. That's going on right now :)
> 
> Thanks for your patience awaiting this chapter, everyone! I'm currently moving house, so we'll be taking a brief hiatus. Weekly updates will resume in March. Comments give me life. Come chat to me [on Tumblr](https://merinathropp.tumblr.com/).


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